Employees belonging to the National Health, Education, Allied and Workers Union (Nehawu) are demanding a 10% salary increase for the board's administrative staff members.
Nehawu shop steward Dennis Phasha said the strike, which began on Friday afternoon and had staffers toyi-toying outside the board's Hyde Park offices, would continue indefinitely.
"It is an indefinite strike until management is ready to call us for more talks," said Phasha.
The statutory body, with which all real estate agents must register, administers the Fidelity Fund, which compensates consumers for losses caused by estate agents over transfer fees and the like.
It is undergoing an overhaul after a forensic audit released this year found financial irregularities and contraventions of corporate governance and public finance rules. Five board members resigned in the wake of the report.
CEO Nomonde Mapetla, who commissioned the audit last year, said on Friday the strike was not justified, saying staff were well paid compared with other administrative workers.
Mapetla said that when she was appointed to her position last November she found that staff were getting automatic salary increases of 10%, regardless of performance.
This September the management and Nehawu agreed to implement a performance system.
Mapetla said management and the union had also agreed on a benchmarking exercise to compare staff salaries with similar jobs.
"The findings of the survey was that the vast majority of staff are extremely well-paid." As a result, it was inappropriate for salary increases to be implemented for the current year, she said.
"We believe that salaries should be frozen until the market catches up with us."
Mapetla said the board could not justify an increase, especially in the light of what she called a "perceived poor performance of the organisation by estate agents".
But Nehawu maintains a salary increase is justified and Phasha said the strike action was protected because the union had a certificate from the Council for Conciliation Mediation and Arbitration giving permission for the strike.
