'It feels like Zimbabwe'
2007-8-3 17:30
Cape Town - Petrol stations ran dry and long lines formed at the few that still had supplies on Friday as a five-day old strike by fuel sector workers gripped many parts of the country.
Johannesburg was hardest hit; panic buying by motorists before the weekend worsened the situation.
"It feels like Zimbabwe," said motorcyclist David Marsh in an oft-repeated reference to the daily shortages afflicting South Africa's neighbour.
Members of the Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood, and Allied Workers' Union (Ceppawu) went on strike Monday to press their claims for a 9.5% wage increase. Employers are offering between 6.5% and 8%.
Hundreds of strikers demonstrated in downtown Johannesburg to express their anger at the high salaries paid to company bosses.
Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said that since 1994 workers had not benefited from the country's booming economy.
'No more peanuts
Vavi said: "The apartheid wage gap continues to grow. We will no longer accept peanuts for our workers. We demand a living wage."
Union leaders and employers in the pharmaceutical sector on Thursday settled on an 8.5% wage increase, averting feared shortages in the production and distribution of key drugs including anti-AIDS medication.
The union said it would meet the National Petroleum Employers Association on Saturday.
"We are hopeful that this meeting will bring about an amicable solution to the current strike," it said in a statement.
But industrial action is looming in other sectors. Three trade unions representing workers in the gold-mining sector earlier this week declared a wage dispute - a precursor to full strike action - with the Chamber of Mines.
Miners want a 15% pay rise and the Chamber of Mines, which negotiates of the industry, has offered just under 8%.
Tax officials to strike
The union representing tax officials on Friday said its members would strike starting August 13 after talks broke down, with management offering 7.5% and the union holding out for 13%.
Tax officials feel particularly aggrieved because they say that their diligence in improving tax collection and clamping down on tax dodgers has increased tax returns by 17% for the past three years and boosted government revenue to such an extent that the country posted a budget surplus last year.
The government fears the spate of pay increases will boost inflation, which has already topped its 6% target because of higher petrol and food prices.
But the unions insist that the ANC has betrayed the cause of workers and done too little to improve living standards since it was swept to power in 1994.
The union movement has taken heart from the relative success of the month-long public servants' strike, who forced the government to up its initial 6.5% pay increase offer to 7.5%.
There were no immediate estimates of the cost to the economy of the current strike.
Feeling the pinch
But individual fuel station managers said they were feeling the pinch and were losing thousands of rands a day.
Radio stations were flooded with calls giving advice on which stations had petrol and which ones were dry.
Mashudu Sinthumule, manager of a BP petrol station in Johannesburg, said that about 100 motorists lined up after a fuel tanker arrived with a new delivery.
"I don't think the supplies will last even the next hour," he said. He said his station had run out of petrol on Wednesday and he had no idea when the next delivery would be made.
The Automobile Association urged motorists to leave their tanks at least a quarter full.
The Department of Minerals and Energy said it would not intervene.
"It is a huge problem and we are not happy with it, but our hands are tied. It is a very tough one ... it is an in-house issue," spokesperson Sputnik Ratau told SAPA.