Sassa employees embark on strike action

The Public Servants Association (PSA) has announced that the majority of the South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) employees affiliated to the union will embark on industrial action starting on Monday.

PSA Deputy General Manager Tahir Maepa says the strike action at Sassa follows the refusal by both Sassa and the Social Development Ministry to engage and negotiate salaries for Sassa employees with the union. Maepa says the current dispute was triggered by the employer’s unilateral decision to tie Sassa employees to the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council (PSCBC) wage agreement and its refusal to negotiate salaries.

“Their argument which is baseless with no facts, they are saying that they don’t have to negotiate with the PSA whatever that happened in the Public Service must also automatically apply to Sassa. This is something that is quite ridiculous because Sassa is the state institution, is an agent of government – is not part of government. That is why it was not part of the collective bargaining process within the PSCBC,” says Maepa.