By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Public Servants Association (PSA) and the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) have found common ground in their contentious wage negotiations.
The union says its members will consider the 5% wage increase offer to end a week-long strike.
The public sector union was demanding a 7.5% salary increase.
SITA provides technological support to government departments, including critical ministries like Health, Home Affairs and SASSA grant payments.
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.
PSA chief negotiator Peter Mngomezulu says the employer made a revised offer that included a one-off cash bonus of R25 million to be shared amongst employees.
“We managed to find each other. However, the SITA management managed to find an R25 million across-the-board once-off bonus, which will be added to the 5% salary increase, which means, in principle, we agreed to the terms of the agreement.
“However, we are busy mandating with the members, waiting for the outcome on whether to accept the offer or not,” he said.
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.
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.
SITA spokesperson Tladi Tladi confirmed staff have returned to work.
“We were able to break the deadlock; parties have found one another, and the strike has ended, the employees are back at work. The union has accepted the offer in principle, return to work, and the agreement will have to be signed.”