South Africa ports’ smaller union Satawu calls off strike

The smaller of the two main labor unions at South Africa’s state-owned port and rail operator Transnet SOC Ltd. said it had called off a strike over wages that’s curbed key exports.

“We have appealed to our members to go back to work tomorrow morning,” South African Transport and Allied Workers Union’s spokeswoman Amanda Tshemese said by phone on Wednesday. “In the interest of the economy, the majority has signed and we just have to release our members.”

The union had initially rejected its rival United National Transport Union’s acceptance of Transnet’s pay offer and said industrial action will continue until workers are assured they won’t lose their jobs. UNTU said Monday it agreed a three-year deal with the company for increases of as much as 6%.

Tshemese said the union still doesn’t agree with the current agreement between the majority and Transnet management and would address its issues internally. 

The union said it represents about a third of Transnet’s 55,827 full-time and contract staff, compared with 24,992 for UNTU.

The strike, which UNTU began on Oct. 6 and Satawu joined four days later, has crimped South African shipments of iron ore, coal and chrome. The Minerals Council South Africa estimated it cost mining companies about 815 million rand ($44 million) a day. Fruit producers also expressed concern that their harvests will rot at the docks.

The strike is another blow to South Africa’s economy, which contracted 0.7% in the second quarter and may be in a technical recession, according to the BankservAfrica Economic Transactions Index. Economic growth faces more headwinds from state-owned power utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., which is implementing rolling electricity outages due to frequent breakdowns at its generation plants.

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