The South African Post Office says plans are afoot to save the parastatal from complete collapse.
Among immediate measures that the Post Office is considering, include the reduction of staff salaries by as much as 40% as of next month.
The SA Post Office incurred a loss of R2.3 billion and owes the PostBank R3.2 billion.
The move to cut staff salaries has been slammed by workers that accuse the CEO and executive of being inconsiderate while earning millions.
SA Post office CEO Nomkitha Mona explains: “What we are doing, is we want to introduce what we call a three-day work week. So, it means that instead of having Post Office employees work for five days and getting paid for that, they will now work for three days. So that will constitute 60% of the work week and that’s where the 40% cut comes from. When we do it, we will not affect the Post Office hours of work.”
The move has been rejected by workers that have termed the strategy as unfair and mischievous.
The Post Office has stressed that the plan to cut salaries will also affect the executives and top management.
The Communication Workers Union (CWU) says workers are frustrated as they can’t afford to lose their jobs in these tough economic times or afford to even take a 40% salary cut.
CWU general secretary Aubrey Tshabalala says, “We all know that in the last four years workers have not received salary increases, they’ve been severance packages taken by a number of workers. But the third point that is critical is we ought to be told what is it that executives and management are earning compared to a person who takes home R5000. Because when you throw a blanket approach on salary cuts, you are basically safeguarding those that are already paid too much. We reject the strategy; it has been short sighted.”
Below is the full interview with Nomkhita Mona, Group CEO for South African Post Office:
