COSATU, Fedusa and Saftu affiliate unions in the public sector are expected to embark on a national day of action on Tuesday next week after government said that it could not afford the demands of a 10% wage increase.
This after Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana reaffirmed that the government’s offer of a 3% wage increase is fair and will be implemented unilaterally.
Wage negotiations have been taking place at the Public Service Coordinating Bargaining Council (PSCBC) since early August 2022.
Cosatu’s Simon Hlongwane confirmed in the joint statement that public service workers will march to the offices of the National Treasury.
“The recent unilateral implementation of the 3% increases will not deter our focus to fight for better salary increases. We have given negotiations a chance and have extended the engagements beyond the set period,” said Hlongwane.
Nehawu deputy General Secretary December Mavuso said: “This is the beginning. It’s going to go on until we declare an indefinite strike”.
The three federations held a media briefing at the PSCBC in Centurion on Thursday afternoon.
“We observed with utter disdain as the employer made jokes about how government has assisted -“sibazamile”- public servants with the paltry 3 per cent offer made,” the federations said in joint a statement.
“The recent unilateral implementation of the 3% increases will not deter our focus to fight for better salary increases. We have given negotiations a chance and have extended the engagements beyond the set period.”
“Our fight is not only for the cost-of-living adjustment but also for the protection of collective bargaining. The unilateral implementation will give us no reason to engage in collective bargaining and the consequences of such will be collapsing social dialogue institutions like the PSCBC which is a creation of legislation in South Africa.”
Workers mandated unions to table demands during the 2022/23 salary negotiations that include a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) of 10%, a reasonably above-inflation increase.
This year the government expects inflation to average at 6.7% whilst it is offering employees a 3% increase.
In the current context of extremely high unemployment, the average wage settlement rate in collective bargaining agreements only rose to 6.1% in the first half of 2022.
In addition to inflation, was the consideration of the interest rate hikes which was increased by 75 basis points in September, taking the repo rate to 6,25% per annum.
Interest rate hikes plus inflation have made the cost of living more expensive for public servants, the working class in general and the poor, Hlungwani said adding that these are concretely expressed in the increased cost of groceries, the nutritional basket for children, fuel, electricity and commuter transport among other costs.
While the demand for 10% against these realities is justified, consideration also ought to be given to the many serious losses public servants have incurred in the past two financial years, particularly the losses of 2020, where workers went without increases because the government refused to implement the last leg of the 2018 collective agreement.
The unions are also demanding a baseline adjustment to the housing allowance to all public servants regardless of whether they own or do not have a bonded house to R2 500, bursary schemes for the children of public servants who are currently excluded because they are considered too rich to get NSFAS funding, but their parents are poor to afford tuition fees and living expenses.
The list of consolidated demands also included access to a pension fund before retirement and an encashment of capped leave, amongst others.
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