About 60 workers, under the banner of the Communication Workers Union (CWU), marched to Parliament in Cape Town on Thursday, demanding that their medical aid and pension fund contributions be paid. The Post Office is facing financial woes. In some cases, these contributions have not been made for years, according to the Post Office’s own estimates.

A memo handed to representatives of the Post Office and the government includes demands for:

• No salary cuts;
• A 15% salary increase;
• No cut in working hours;
• The CEO to resign; and
• The Post Office to pay all medical aid and pension contributions.

Riedewaan Vermeulen, the chairperson of CWU in the Western Cape, said they anticipate that the Post Office won’t meet their demand for a 15% salary increase, but it should at least be willing to negotiate.

“They’re not even doing that. We’ve written to them, we want to negotiate, but they are refusing to do that,” said Vermeulen.

On 6 November, Cosatu announced that the Post Office would retrench about 6,000 workers due to its financial troubles. According to the CWU, the Post Office says it does not have money to pay salaries. Some workers could have their salaries reduced and working hours cut, or be retrenched.

Vermeulen said there had been robberies at many post offices which do not have proper security measures. He said working conditions were bad at some branches, with no working toilets, leaking roofs, no electricity, and cases where workers bring their own toilet paper to work.

Vermeulen said because the medical aid contributions were not paid, more than 9,000 workers are without much-needed medical services.

Aubrey Zwelingani, a postman from Matroosfontein, told GroundUp that medical aid contributions were still being deducted from their salaries, despite the Post Office not paying them to the fund.

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Zwelingani said they had not received a salary increase for more than three years.

“My family depends on me. Almost 10 people depend on me. We are unhappy with what’s going on,” he said.

Louis Petersen, who has worked for the Post Ofice for more than 30 years, said he worries that all the talks about retrenchments and salary cuts are happening “behind the scenes”, and workers have not been told what the government’s plans are for the Post Office.

Post Office spokesperson Johan Kruger confirmed that the Post Office had received the union’s memo.

“CWU is an important partner in business for the Post Office. The Post Office will go through the memorandum in detail and respond to the union as soon as possible,” he said.

Kruger said the Post Office was in talks with the government for financial support.

“The Post Office provides certain services, such as a postal service in rural areas and paying out social grants, at a substantial loss,” said Kruger.

The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) said in a press statement on Thursday that it supported the workers and CWU’s protest, and the “genuine demands by workers for better salaries and improved working conditions”. DM

First published by GroundUp.