Union outraged at SA Post Office mass retrenchment plan

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JEREMY MAGGS: There’s still no final decision, but the South African Post Office (Sapo) is considering laying off more workers. The embattled state-owned entity was placed into provisional liquidation in February. With us now on Moneyweb@Midday is Aubrey Tshabalala from the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU). First up, what are you hearing then in terms of numbers?

AUBREY TSHABALALA: Good afternoon to your listeners and to you, Jeremy. Well, firstly, let me say that after the first plan of retrenchment of Section 189 was suspended due to provisional liquidation, there was not any other process that was involved. It’s only the presentation that was made before Parliament yesterday that to our shock and surprise, it has jumped from 6000 to now 7000 in terms of their proposal, which we basically don’t know what informs that, but of course there should be a retrenchment in terms of Section 189. There will be that process that will follow that, obviously we will then have all these questions that have to be answered.

JEREMY MAGGS: Now that Cabinet has backed this plan, it seems like a done deal?

AUBREY TSHABALALA: Well, if you look at it, Jeremy, one way is that we find that … provisional liquidation and non-challenging of it, except to say that they went to court to say can you give us an extension, we want to apply for business rescue. It’s one way of trying to secure an easy process to unbundle the Post Office … but two, to retrench workers with a minimum fight because there will be limitations in terms of labour and delivering that particular perspective. So our view is that we are going to join the court proceedings in making sure that we mitigate the impact …

JEREMY MAGGS: If 7 000 people are a retrenched from the Post Office, where does it leave the entity in terms of its ability to function?

AUBREY TSHABALALA: It’ll leave the entity in a dire space because first and foremost, you’ll recall that a plan to retrench 6 000 was a proposal around 2019, where they had more staff – it was recorded at around 17 000. We are now less than 12 000. From November 2022 until to date, there were VSPs, meaning that people were taking voluntary severance packages, so over 1 000 or so people have left.

So for government to say 7000 now, it will mean the impact could be over 60% of the staff.

As you know, the business of any postal and courier services operates based on the human capital, which will be their network to deliver, to render services. So you need human capital. So this will mean that the Post Office will have to shortcut … which will make it impossible for it to recover in terms of retaining ground against the highly competitive private sector … that is already eating the lunch of the Post Office. So it’ll make a very difficult situation if they go ahead with the retrenchment.

JEREMY MAGGS: Given that the organisation is currently in provisional liquidation, is it actually a functioning entity?

AUBREY TSHABALALA: Well, one thing that we’ve argued as CWU is that the entity has not been given a space to function. If you remember, even during the days of Mark Barnes, there was a great turnaround strategy that was introduced, with labour making input. Fast forward [and we see] those turnaround strategies were never really being implemented or being given a chance to be implemented.

Mark Barnes was complaining that he does not get the support of the shareholder, and you move on. So most of this has not been working, functioning. So as a result, you’re not going to [lose] any outcomes in terms of revenue. You’re not going to be effective.

You’re not going to draw consumers to you because you are not efficient in all of those. So it makes the Post Office inefficient and not working, but it is a business that has great prospect. It can still survive if there is a political will. I think that’s all that we are calling for is political will. Even questions of bailouts are not necessary …

JEREMY MAGGS: But Aubrey Tshabalala, it’s clearly obvious that there is no political will, given that Cabinet has backed this plan to go ahead with the retrenchments anyway?

AUBREY TSHABALALA: Absolutely, and there are many people in a very dire situation. We’re talking the poor of the poor who depend on Post Office services, social grant payments in the outskirts of the rural areas, so the impact will be massive, it’ll reflect the government that doesn’t care about the poor that it claims to [care about].

JEREMY MAGGS: There is the argument that a reduction in staff at the Post Office would at least save some jobs. So you say you have a compliment of 12 000, this could potentially save the jobs of 5 000 or 6 000 people.

AUBREY TSHABALALA: Well, first things first, we requested in the process of Section 189, the audited financial statement, which they failed to provide.  We requested an audited HR statement because there were applications of ghost employees in the first place.  So when you’re going to rollout and retrench people that are warm bodies and with ghost employees, it would be another challenge.

So there are a number of things that we have to look into before we can even decide what is it that we need to do, because when you’re just going to retrench, what skills don’t you need? What skills do you need? Or are you just going to throw a blanket and say, we’re retrenching and we’ll see how it goes afterwards? That as well could be a negative impact on the institution itself.

JEREMY MAGGS: Are you actually in any form of discussion with the Post Office, have alternatives to layoffs been proposed or discussed? If they have been, what are they and what would the benefits and drawbacks be?

AUBREY TSHABALALA: Well, the last engagement we had with the executive and the CEO was last week Thursday 1 June, where we were only discussing the issue about the liquidation and where we’re actually giving support as labour to deal with the liquidation. At the same time, we’re still waiting for the shareholder, which is Minister Mondli Gungubele, to come back to us because we have called [for engagement with him].

The presentation yesterday basically shocked us because there’s absolutely no consultation that has happened with the workforce, because you need to consult with labour, even before you go and present in Parliament, at least you’ll have two sides of the story. You’ll have to have a better understanding of the institution, and we think that’s where the department has failed.

JEREMY MAGGS: Just a final question. Is it fair to say that the union misses the former chief executive officer, Mark Barnes.

AUBREY TSHABALALA: You are putting us in an awkward position. What I’ll say is the number of CEOs who have come on board, the lack of support that they got, and I’m also referring to Mark Barnes, has led to where we are today. So it will be unfair to single him out, but a number of them tried to do their best. But obviously this lies squarely on the shoulders of the state.

JEREMY MAGGS: Thank you very much for joining us from the Communication Workers’ Union, Aubrey Tshabalala.