Union up in arms as Post Office moves Union calls for probe over the South African Post Office decision to move headquarters CHANTELLE BENJAMIN Published: 2011/03/22 06:23:56 AM
A ROW has emerged between the Communication Workers Union and the South African Post Office over the Post Office’s decision to move its headquarters from Pretoria to Centurion, with the union calling for a probe by Communications Minister Roy Padayachie. The union has also submitted objections to the public protector, questioning the procurement process. The Post Office said the organisation had outgrown the building, which was originally built to be a mail distribution centre. Staff are to start work today at the new offices. The union’s spokesman, Matankana Mothapo, said workers would be out of pocket by the move, and questioned why the Post Office is paying R3m a month to rent a building in Eco Park, Centurion, when it owns the building in Pretoria. Workers were previously given transport and other allowances at sites such as Witspos and Durmail. "The question remains: Who is benefiting from this process, because workers are worse off?" Section 197 of the Labour Relations Act comes into effect when outsourcing occurs and forces the new operator of the service to take over all the labour law obligations of the old undertaking. Post Office spokeswoman Lulama Luti said yesterday that the former mail centre no longer had the capacity to handle all the staff spread across satellite offices in the Johannesburg and Pretoria areas, which meant workers were constantly travelling to offices for meetings. "Lots of man hours were lost this way," she said, adding that the Post Office had been consulting with unions on the move for nearly a year. Asked about the rental price, she said: "The decision to rent the property was taken after a number of business models were looked at by management and this option was considered the best." [email protected] - Post Office defends appeal court judges<http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=129544> - SA Post Office reports R379m profit<http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=125698> -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] .
