- SA Post Office workers have received a letter from MEDiPOS Medical Scheme which claims that SAPO has not paid contributions worth R213.3 million since 1 April 2020.
- The Communication Workers Union also claims that retirement have been deducted from payslips, but not handed over to retirement administrators.
- The Post Office hasn't responded to Fin24's questions about the allegations.
SA Post Office (SAPO) workers are planning to down tools on Wednesday after they were told that the parastatal had not paid their pension and medical aid contributions to the relevant bodies even though the deductions reflect on workers' payslips.
The Communication Workers Union (CWU) gave the industrial action notice to SAPO on Friday and warned that the strike would commence on 14 October.
CWU general secretary Aubrey Tshabalala alleged that SAPO violated several obligations towards its workers as stated in their employment contracts.
These include the apparent non-payment of statutory benefits, like medical aid and retirement contributions, as well as a failure to implement a 6.5% salary increase which the parties had agreed on and which was supposed to come into effect in April.
Funds misappropriated?
"We note that there are new people that just came in as acting now and have found the Post Office in this crisis it is at. But we are saying that heads must roll because workers' payslips show that all the deductions were made. We are saying there is a misappropriation of funds," Tshabalala said.
At the time of publication, SAPO had not responded to Fin24's questions regarding the situation.
Tshabalala said workers also wanted SAPO management to account for the R2.9 billion that the National Treasury had given to it in the 2018 medium term budget. SAPO received that allocation in January 2019 and said at the time that it would be used to partly to partly settle long-term loans, pay critical suppliers and fund future capital expenditure. But last month, the Treasury said SAPO was back to ask for more financial support.
On Friday, MEDiPOS Medical Scheme, which provides medical aid to SAPO employees, wrote to the state-owned entity (SOE) and warned that it would stop providing cover if arrear medical aid contributions were not paid by 31 December.
The letter said R213.3 million in contributions were outstanding from April 2020 to 30 September 2020. MEDiPOS principal officer Thabisiwe Mlotshwa also wrote that the scheme continued to pay SAPO staff claims during that period but it could not continue doing so indefinitely and that its failure to collect premiums timeously was creating trouble for MEDiPOS with the regulator, the Council for Medical Schemes.
"While, the scheme has made several attempts to engage with SAPO on this matter, and will continue to do so, as matters currently stand, there is no firm undertaking on the part of SAPO to make arrangements to pay the arrear contributions, as well as any contributions going forward," Mlotshwa wrote in the letter.
Deliberate attempt to destroy SAPO
Tshabalala said the union also wanted to address the long-standing mismanagement of SAPO with the planned industrial action.
He said workers proposed the modernising of SAPO more than a decade ago but the lack of political will debilitated the company to a point that it was at risk of a "collapse like SAA".
"What [Danish courier company] DSV is doing today by putting machines at all garage forecourts, those are the things we proposed way back in 2007. Noting that the Post Office has footprint all around the country and all these other post and courier services don't, it shows that there is a concerted effort to destroy the SOE deliberately," he said.
CWU said its next plan of action was to march to government departments, including the National Treasury, which uses private sector players for courier needs.
He said the government also needed to address the fact that SAPO's prices were regulated while competing in an open market with private players who can move goods much faster because they charge more.