Sita employees return to work

The Public Servants Association (PSA) has given its members until Tuesday to decide whether to accept or reject the State IT Agency’s updated offer.

PSA-affiliated Sita employees have ceased their weeklong industrial action and returned to work on Monday morning after the trade union, the largest in the public sector, and Sita reached a compromise on Friday.

Sita did not increase the 5% value of what it previously termed it’s “final offer” but did add a once-off ex gratia payment of R8 326.45 for each its 3 103 employees to be paid on 25 November.

“The ex gratia payment was used by Sita to diffuse the tensions because the employer could not meet the demand of a 7.5% increase that workers had made,” PSA chief negotiator Zamani Dladla told TechCentral. “Sita committed R25-million to divide among the employees as a deal ‘sweetener’.”

Last week, communications minister Mondli Gungubele called for a speedy resolution to the strike, citing the disruption to service delivery as his major concern. Sita employees are responsible for the upkeep of IT infrastructure across multiple spheres of government, including key services at home affairs, social grants agency Sassa, the national border system and the police’s national call centre.

Sita deadline

Although employees have ceased picketing outside of Sita’s offices and have returned to work, the organisation’s proposal has not been formally approved yet. Workers have up until Tuesday either to accept or reject Sita’s offer.

“It must be stressed that the PSA will only accept the offer once the majority of members have provided a mandate [to do so],” PSA GM Reuben Maleka said in a letter to members seen by TechCentral.

Read: Minister urges speedy end to Sita strike

The PSA has also asked that Sita waive the “no work, no pay” principle in respect of the two-week long strike action, which Sita has agreed to discuss privately before responding to the association.

“As the employer, we are pleased that the process of engagement with the labour union has finally borne fruit,” said Sita head of corporate affairs Tlali Tlali.

“The situation has returned to normal in relation to the operations at Sita. We are now operating on the basis of the full strength of our workforce and hope this will help us enhance the qualitative delivery of ICT services to the various government department that we support.”

Tlali also noted that both the PSA and its member showed goodwill by reporting for duty even though the agreement has not officially been signed.  “They have acted in accordance with the good faith shown throughout the negotiation process,” he said.  – © 2023 NewsCentral Media

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