The Federation of Unions of South Africa (Fedusa) and the United National Transport Union (UNTU) will embark on a march to provincial government offices on Friday morning.
The workers, who will hand over a memorandum of grievances to provincial Transport Department offices, are demanding improved rail services including the safety of commuters on trains.
The unions are calling on President Cyril Ramaphosa to urgently intervene in the matter.
UNTU General-Secretary Steve Harris says, “We’ve got marches taking place in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban and in Pretoria and we will be marching from about 10 o clock peacefully and we’ll be handing over our memorandum demanding these issues that I’ve raised to various role-players representing the Department of Transport or the MEC.”
It appears most train commuters in the Soweto corridor have sought alternative transport due to Friday’s national train strike.
The usually bustling New Canada train station, where trains coming from Soweto and the Vereeniging interchange has few commuters waiting for trains on Friday morning.
A limited number of trains have been coming in and out of the station with a few commuters on board.
In Pretoria, trains are operating normally.
Although Metrorail in Gauteng announced it will be using its Sunday schedule on Friday, it is business as usual at the Mabopane station, one of the biggest and busiest stations in the country.
The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa announced that the strike will not have much of an impact on operations as contingency plans have been put in place. Most members who are not affiliated to the UNTU were expected to report for duty.
Meanwhile, train commuters in Khayelitsha on the Cape Flats say they have decided to seek alternative transport due to a number of cancellations.
At Nonqubela, one of the busiest train stations in the area, commuters are making their way to nearby taxi ranks.
Members of workers’ unions, Fedusa and UNTU are due to march to Parliament to hand over a memorandum of grievances later on Friday.
Metrorail says they have been more incidents of vandalism on the Northern and Southern lines.-Additional reporting by Tshepo Phagane, Vanessa Poonah, Berenice Moss and Phumzile Mlangeni.
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