Bus strike Port Elizabeth

The nationwide bus industry strike has not affected Intercape operations, the company said on Wednesday and was ferrying travellers at its Traduna Mall and Greenacres stations on 25 April.

SA Roadlink was also still selling tickets at its Port Elizabeth office and travelling.

"All Intercape's intercity routes are fully operational, without any disruption to the scheduled departures," the company said.

Its coach charter service was also operating as usual.

The SA Transport and Allied Workers' Union (Satawu) announced the strike last week.

Members are demanding an 18% wage increase, and allowances for housing, night-shift, and long-distance journeys.

Employers have offered a 6.5% wage increase and refused an 8% proposal by the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation, and Arbitration on Wednesday in an attempt to break the deadlock.

Satawu spokesperson Vincent Masoga said on Tuesday that workers needed a substantial increase to offset rising food and housing costs.

"Members don't have a problem to negotiate, but they cannot take anything less than a double-digit [increase]," he said.

Meanwhile Unitrans Bus group of Greyhound, Magic Bus, Mega Coach, and Citiliner as well as the Springbok Atlas Luxury Charters buses were some of the long distance bus companies affected.

Greyhound said on its Facebook page, “The Nationwide strike is affecting a few services. We can unfortunately not predict how services will be affected over the next few days. Should you have any enquiries, you may contact Customer Care on 011 611 8000 / 083 915 9000 or e-mail team.leader@greyhound.co.za. Please do not direct any equiries to Facebook - any customer care related enquiries must be referred to Customer Care. Thank you for your cooperation at this time.”

The national strike was initially called last Friday by the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) and included Johannesburg’s Gautrain and Putco buses – and Algoa Bus in Port Elizabeth.