Transport union mulls mass registration of members

The South Sudan General Transport Workers Trade Union (SSGTWTU) plans to roll out countrywide membership registration to organize the informal workers in the country.

The union’s chair, Simon Lasu, said membership registration was necessary to establish a trade workers’ union for the country’s transportation sector.

He said the conditions of the informal transport workers will only be improved through the strategic deployment of associations and structural union membership.

“The purpose of the establishment of the Transport Workers Trade Union is to organize the work in different transport sectors, especially the main four transport systems, which include rivers, aviation, roads, and railways, although railways are yet to be established,” Lasu said.

According to him, the union will start the registration of its membership at the beginning of next month.

“In our last meeting conducted in Juba with all the leadership of these different transport sectors, we agreed to start membership registration on February 1, 2023.”

“The second, we agreed that the registration forms must be consolidated and that only the national union will distribute forms.”

Also, he ordered all 10 states and the three administrative areas to develop strategies for their union to facilitate membership registration.

The registrations are classified into two different categories, which include the private and public sectors.

Employees in the private sector are expected to pay SSP 3000 while those in the public sector will pay SSP 1000. Foreigners shall pay a maximum of SSP 5000 to obtain a membership card.

The South Sudan Transport and General Workers’ Trade Union was founded on July 15, 2022, with the aim of pioneering an organising method through the affiliation of mass membership associations of four main transport categories, including road, river, and aviation transport workers.