THE South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) and its affiliate, the Democratic Postal and Communications Union (Depacu), are dismayed and disappointed by the approval of a business rescue plan that proposes to retrench up to 6 000 employees of the South African Post Office.
Saftu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said these job cuts will plunge workers into hardship and poverty, especially against the backdrop of rising living costs and high household debt.
The plan to retrench about 6 000 workers was proposed earlier in 2023 and is part of a medium-term plan to reduce the number of employees at the Post Office from over 16 000 in 2020 to about 9 000 in 2024.
This drive is based on the company's restructuring plans, in which, among others, identified.
Anoosh Rooplal, Sapo Business Rescue Practitioners, said that the Post Office will be redeployed to offer diversified and expanded services through hybrid mail extensions, new vehicle licence disc solutions, increased revenue from property rentals and the creation of a digital hub for comprehensive communications.
Rooplal said that the plan will be adopted in two phases over a period of two to five years.
He said phase one will involve stabilising the business, reducing the branch network to about 600 branches and reducing the workforce to about 5 000 employees.
"The training of current employees and the recruitment of additional digital specialists and managers will support the modernisation and transition to digitalisation.
"The focus will be on improving services, which will include increasing the size of the fleet to deliver letters and parcels on time," he said.
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But according to Vavi, the so-called right-sizing plans are in plain language a reduction in jobs.
"Although right-sizing seems like a logical step when operating costs exceed revenue, it hides the problem underlying the perceived imbalance or wrong-sizing. The mismanagement of the SA Post Office and the closure of branches is the real cause of the unbalanced staff size and the perpetual state of insolvency that the Post Office has been in for the past few years," he said.
He said the retrenchments of workers means that post office branches are understaffed and cannot meet demand. This leads to dissatisfaction among customers.
He said in other cases, this goes hand in hand with branch closures. But closing branches alone means that revenue streams are minimised, contributing to further economic losses.
