The City of Cape Town has urged unions to return to the negotiation table and work towards a resolution to labour disputes at Transnet.
This comes after Transnet workers represented by United National Transport Union (Untu) and the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu), embarked on a strike last week during negotiations with the CCMA.
The CoCT said that it had been in constant communication with the port management team and were monitoring the situation to advise and support in its capacity as local government.
“We want to acknowledge that the port management is implementing a business continuity plan while the strike is ongoing which is enabling some activity to take place in the port,” read a statement issued by the CoCT.
“However, it is unable to operate at full capacity.”
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“We have also formed a working group consisting of, amongst others, officials from the Enterprise and Investment Department within the Economic Growth Directorate, the Western Cape Exporters’ Club, the provincial Department of Economic Development and Tourism, and Wesgro wherein port challenges are identified and answers sought.”
“The strike only adds to Transnet’s existing woes which have cost billions of rands in lost revenue for exporters with the mining sector estimating that it has already lost R50 billion this year because of the state-owned company’s worsening performance.”
“Early estimates suggest that the strike could further cost the economy between R6bn and R8bn each day.”
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