<\/p>\n
South African state-owned logistics firm Transnet said on Monday it had agreed a three-year wage deal with the union representing the majority of its workers, ending a two-week strike that had hit commodities exports and piled up millions in losses.<\/p>\n
“Transnet and the company’s majority union United Transport and Allied Trade Union (UNTU) reached a three-year wage agreement today,” it said in a statement, adding the deal would bring most of its employees back to work.<\/p>\n
UNTU members, who represent more than half of the company’s workforce, went on strike on Oct.6, demanding an increase linked to South Africa’s year-on-year inflation rate, which was 7.6% in August.<\/p>\n
Transnet said it had agreed on a 6% wage increase for the current financial year, a 5.5% raise next year and a further 6% boost in 2024. The deal is effective from April 2022, it said.<\/p>\n
“The company’s priority in the immediate is clearing any backlogs across the port and rail system \u2013 prioritizing urgent and time-sensitive cargo,” Transnet said.<\/p>\n
UNTU officials were not immediately available for comment.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU) told Reuters the minority union had not yet agreed to a deal with Transnet.<\/p>\n
The strike has hobbled Transnet’s freight rail and port operations including the Durban harbor, one of Africa’s busiest, impacting mineral and agricultural commodity exports.<\/p>\n
Last week, the Minerals Council of South Africa said mining companies were losing 815 million rand ($45.27 million) per day in export revenue due to the strike, as major mineral export harbors were operating at between 12% and 30% of their daily averages due to the strike.<\/p>\n
The strike also affected the horticulture sector as fruit exporters struggled to send produce to overseas markets.<\/p>\n
($1 = 18.0020 rand)<\/em><\/p>\n (Reuters – Reporting by Nelson Banya; Editing by Promit Mukherjee, Matthew Lewis and David Evans)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n maritime professional<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" South African state-owned logistics firm Transnet said on Monday it had agreed a three-year wage deal with the union representing the majority of its workers, ending a two-week strike that had hit commodities exports and piled up millions in losses. “Transnet and the company’s majority union United Transport and Allied Trade Union (UNTU) reached a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31682,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-maritime-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/31682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}