Union, SATAWU’s General- Secretary Jack Mazibuko says despite outstanding issues over their wage demands, they are happy to finally sign the one-year wage agreement with PRASA.
SATAWU and UNTU were demanding a 15 percent wage increase, while the employer was offering five percent, citing lack of funds. However, this morning the unions have agreed to settle for the offer.
Mazibuko says they will engage in more wage negotiations early in 2024.
“We are very excited as organised labour SATAWU and UNTU. This was a marathon of wage negotiations considering the challenges that PRASA is confronted with, in fact when we started the wage negotiations workers demanded 15 percent but through the engagement the unions decided to realistic and requested management to be realistic as well. We didn’t find each other, we must indicate that up until we referred the matter to the CCMA, subsequent to that PRASA management have called the parties to gather and table the finances for us and they proposed that the middle ground can be five percent. We consulted the members and alluded that we can sign for the five percent. We hope that next year we will be starting another wage negotiations and hope that PRASA will come up with a better offer to workers.”
