The government is broke and “teetering on a fiscal cliff”, so parties at the public-sector co-ordinating bargaining council (PSCBC) should negotiate in good faith, public service and administration minister Senzo Mchunu said.
Mchunu was addressed the media on Thursday, a few weeks after the government formally tabled a 0% wage offer for the 2021/2022 financial year, to the annoyance of unions who are demanding higher wages.
“To those negotiating in the chamber, our message to you is: be courageous, exercise leadership and negotiate with your brains and hearts. Negotiate as patriotic citizens not as adversaries,” the minister said.
Mchunu described the negotiations currently taking place at the bargaining council as the most difficult between government and labour “which the country has ever faced”.
He said those on the negotiating table should take the interests of government, citizens, and public servants into account during the wage talks.
“We are investing a lot into these negotiations and are expecting a lot from the outcome, doing so in good faith and with the utmost transparency under circumstances where National Treasury has unequivocally told cabinet that the state has no money.
“Each proposal by either of the parties must be taken seriously, holistically and comprehensively,” he said.
The negotiators needed to go beyond demands and arrive at solutions while “avoiding confrontation”.
He said the economy, which has been ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic, declining 7% in 2020, was in a bad state and that “we are headed towards a fiscal cliff”.
Unions have already taken the government to court for defying earlier agreements.
The unions are demanding a wage increase of the consumer price index (CPI) plus 4% across the board for 2021/2022 — above the 3.2% inflation rate recorded in March and also higher than the 4.3% average the Reserve Bank expects for 2021.
The unions’ other demands include a R2,500 housing allowance, a special risk allowance of 12% of basic salaries during national disasters such as Covid-19, and the filling of all vacant posts in the public service.
Last week, the Public Servants Association (PSA), one of the country’s largest public-sector union representing more than 235,000 workers, threatened to go on strike after the government tabled the offer. “We will go on strike and shut down the public sector. We will be on the streets, demanding the government takes us seriously,” it said.
Zola Saphetha, general secretary of the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu), said following Mchunu’s media briefing the union is “more than convinced that a war is unavoidable between organised labour and the government”.
“In an unexpected yet silly move the minister decided to try to use the media to pacify unions and plead for the sympathy of the public using half-truths. As Nehawu, we are still perplexed as to why the minister would choose to discuss matters before the bargaining council on the eve of the sitting of the council,” said Saphetha.
“While the minister insisted that we should allow the council to deliberate and conclude on the ongoing salary negotiations, that did not stop him from using the media to negotiate and try guilt trip labour into reversing the gains of workers.”
Saphetha said they viewed Mchunu’s “little stunt as part of the broader agenda of undermining collective bargaining by the government of the day”.
“The national union vows to fight until the bitter end to defend collective bargaining which did not come on a silver platter in this country. The erosion of the principle of collective bargaining must be ferociously defended as the end results will be workers returning to slave-like working conditions.”
Judging by the minister’s tone, said Saphetha, “it is clear that government negotiators will bring a 0% salary increase once again tomorrow [Friday]”.
“This leaves us with no option but to seek a strike certificate while preparing for a full-blown strike.”
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