NATIONAL NEWS - Services at the SA Post Office (Sapo) are back to normal after it signed an agreement with trade unions regarding salary increases and other substantive issues.

This has brought an end to the strike which started on 3 July and was organised by the Communication Workers Union (CWU), Democratic Postal Workers Union (Depacu) and SA Postal Workers Union (Sapwu).

In terms of the agreement, post office employees across the board will receive a salary increase of 6,5%, backdated to 1 April 2018. Furthermore, the contracted working hours for permanent part time employees, have been moved from 21.5 hours per week to 27.5 hours per week. Five hundred of these positions are earmarked to be phased in as permanent full-time employees in due course, following an appropriate process.

According to a statement by the post office, accumulated mail is expected to take roughly 20 work days to be processed.

It stated that it realises the importance of the Sassa project and is committed to work closely with its employees to ensure the livelihoods of the most vulnerable are not put under unnecessary strain. Sapo has migrated 2,2 million Sassa beneficiaries to the new Sassa/Sapo issued gold card. "We want to assure all beneficiaries that the IT challenges that impacted last month’s payment run have been resolved. We encourage all social grant beneficiaries to migrate to the new gold Sassa/Sapo card at pay-points," said Sapo CEO Mark Barnes.

"I wish to thank customers for their patience and understanding, and trade unions for negotiating in good faith."

He also thanked the department of telecommunication and postal services as well as the Council for Counselling, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) for their support and guidance.

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