South Africa labour deal ends refinery strike

| Wednesday August 8, 2007 00:00

 

Major refineries said they had begun processes to resume operations but would need a few days before the fuel supply situation was back to normal.
Keith Jacobs, deputy secretary general of the Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers Union (Ceppwawu) said an agreement had been reached early this morning after a night of marathon talks. 'The agreement that we have right now is for an 8.5 percent salary increase that is backdated to the first of July,' Jacobs said.

'Other issues such as the six-month maternity leave and an agreement on working hours will continue to be discussed, but we hope to tie those up soon,' he said. The agreement only covers the petroleum sector. Workers in the industrial chemical, fast-moving consumer goods, tissue and allied sectors, belonging to the same union, continue their multi-sector strike.

'Because of the national outcry, the petrol bosses came running to the table and that is why we now have an agreement for that particular sector,' Jacobs said. Petroleum sector workers had been pushing for a 9.5 percent wage increase, while employers had initially offered eight percent. The strike had disrupted the supply and distribution of fuel, causing panic at filling stations across the country.

Sapref, the country's largest refinery, said it would take close to a week before its refinery was back to full capacity. 'There is a sequence to returning the refinery to full operations which stretches over at least four to five days,' spokesperson Prudence Mbatha said.

The refinery, a 50-50 joint venture between Shell and BP, refines 180,000 barrels per day of crude oil. State-owned PetroSA, which shut its 36,000-barrel-a-day Mossel Bay gas-to-liquid plant a week ago, said work to restore the refinery to full capacity had begun early today (yesterday) and would take three to four days.

'When a successful conclusion to the negotiations was reached at about 01.00am this morning, we immediately dispatched our standby teams to various sections of the plant to begin work on bringing it up,' it said in a statement.
The refinery produces about seven percent of the country's fuel requirements. (Reuters)