Satawu Wants Urgent Meeting With PRASA After Workers Asked To Take Annual Leave

The South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) on Monday called on its members to ignore a message from the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) stating that employees would be forced to take annual leave.

Eyewitness News has seen the communique to the company’s employees stating that some workers should take retrospective annual leave for the lockdown period from 17-30 April.

Satawu said the move would take R1 billion of annual leave from junior employees within the bargaining unit.

There had been much confusion about whether companies could force employees to apply for annual leave.

Satawu’s Lubabalo Tinzi said when Prasa initially suggested workers should convert their special leave to annual leave, the union was against it.

“Satawu is in a state of shock with the attitude that has been adopted by Prasa executives at the expense of workers that there has been intensive engagement on how best we can manage the issue of leave,” he said.

Tinzi said workers should disregard the communication and await further instructions from the union.

Satawu said it would write a letter to the administrator at Prasa requesting an urgent meeting.

For official information about COVID-19 from the Department of Health, please click here.

EWN