The strike, in its second week, has affected the country’s ports, denting exports of metals, cars, fruit and wine to Europe and Asia and hitting imports of vehicle parts and fuel supplies just three weeks before the start of the soccer World Cup.
Chris de Vos, general secretary of the United Transport and Allied Trade Union, said an agreement to end a parallel strike affecting commuters could also be signed later on Thursday.
"It looks good. The feedback that we are getting is that the majority of our members are accepting the agreement," he told Reuters.
"Both agreements could be signed later today (Thursday). If all goes well, all workers will be back at work tomorrow."
Transnet has not raised its wage offer beyond 11 percent, but improved other conditions such as raising the minimum wage, offering a one-off payment and promising to employ a higher number of contract workers on a permanent basis.
The smaller union at Transnet, the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu), has had mixed reactions from its members so far.
"We are getting quite a mixed reaction so it will only be later today that we will be able to say whether or not there is a consolidated acceptance or rejection," said Jane Barrett, a negotiator for Satawu.
Utatu and Satawu represent 85 percent of the logistic group’s 54,000 workers. Two-thirds of Transnet’s workers have been on strike since Monday of last week.
Striking workers have been under pressure from government to end the strike, and workers, who are not being paid while on strike, said they cannot stay away from their jobs indefinitely.
Economists have estimated losses in the hundreds of millions of rand, but this would rise to billions if the strike dragged on, and it may take weeks to clear the backlog at the ports.
South Africa hosts the World Cup next month, and FIFA said imports of some equipment for the event have been affected.
The strike has forced mining firms including Anglo American Plc’s iron ore unit and Xstrata’s ferrochrome unit, and the South African unit of the world’s top steelmaker ArcelorMittal , to declare force majeure on supplies to their customers. Transnet also said it had declared force majeure on shippings of coal to the port.
So far coal exports to power plants in Europe and Asia have not been affected, with stocks at the Richards Bay Coal Terminal, the world’s biggest coal export route, at 4 million tonnes, enough for a further two weeks, according to traders.
The strike has raised criticism of workers among economists and the central bank for using the World Cup to push for wage hikes way above inflation of 5.1 percent.
The National Union of Mineworkers, the biggest union at state-owned power utility Eskom, said it would go on strike from next Wednesday over a pay dispute that could disrupt power supplies in Africa’s biggest economy.
Source: Reuters