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strike that has disrupted fuel supplies, the Solidarity union said on Monday.
Tens of thousands of workers in the fuel sector walked off the job last week, delaying deliveries of petrol and diesel and sparking panic buying at pumps in Gauteng province, the country’s economic hub.
The industrial action intensified on Monday after Solidarity, a small but influential union, joined other labour groups on strike.
“Employers in the sector this afternoon made an offer of between 8 percent and 10 percent, depending on the employment level,” the union said.
The previous offer was for wages to rise by between 4 and 7 percent, while unions have been asking for 13 percent.
Solidarity is consulting with other labour groups on the revised offer before presenting it to its members.
The strike will continue until a deal is reached, deputy secretary general Dirk Hermann said.
Fuel industry employers include BP Plc, Royal Dutch Shell, petrochemicals group Sasol, state-owned energy firm PetroSA, Engen, Chevron and Total.
Sasol said the strike was affecting production at its Secunda synthetic fuels plant.
“In the interest of safety, sections of the East side of the Sasol Secunda plant are being run at lower production rates than normal,” Sasol said.
“These reduced production rates will impact on some fuel and chemical production. Sasol is doing everything in its power to continue to supply products to its customers using the available resources.”
Economists said the fuel strike may cost South Africa billions of rand and entrench an image of an investment destination prone to walk-outs and above-inflation wage demands in labour-intensive industries such as mining and manufacturing.
The strike action has caused hundreds of service stations to run out of fuel.
“At the moment there are 260 dry sites across the country, 196 of those are in Gauteng,” said Tania Landsberg, spokeswoman at fuel retailer Engen, which runs 510 service stations in Gauteng and 1200 nationally.
Shell also said its fuel distribution remained constrained following a 12-hour stoppage on deliveries because of incidents of intimidation and violence by striking workers. – Reuters.

“Around 157 Shell service stations are now (without) one or more grades of fuel,” the company said in a statement.
The government called for a speedy resolution to the strike to avoid a crisis, which was likely to affect all parts of the economy.
Unions and employers are locked in their mid-year bargaining session known as “strike season”, with many labour groups seeking wage increases that far exceed inflation.
Companies from other sectors affected by strikes include paper makers Mondi and Sappi.
A two-week strike in the steel and engineering sector ended on Sunday. Wage talks in South Africa’s mining sector are also well under way, and possible strikes loom in the crucial platinum, coal and gold industries.-Reuters