After three months of talks the government has reached a deal with a majority of public sector employees, with the “interim” one-year wage deal to be implemented as early as Tuesday.
With the Public Servants Association (PSA) announcing on Monday that it would sign the deal, the threshold of 50% was reached.
The SA Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu), the Health & Other Services Personnel Trade Union of SA (Hospersa) and the National Professional Teachers Organisation of SA have already signed the agreement.
The deal means employees will receive a R5,000 payment after tax with their August salary, which will include R4,000 back pay. However, negotiations for the next year of the agreement will need to begin in September.
SA’s largest public service union, the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu), has vowed that it will not sign the agreement.
Its members will benefit in any event because the agreement is binding.
The government’s improved offer to unions for 2021/2022 includes a 1.5% pay progression increase (an increase linked to years of service) and a monthly cash gratuity on a sliding scale of between R1,220 and R1,695. The sliding scale will ensure that all employees below management level receive R1,000 after tax.
While the 1.5% pay progression is factored into budget projections for the next three years, the cash gratuity is not.
The Treasury has said the cash sweetener will cost the government R18bn. Finance minister Tito Mboweni has vowed that the payout will be budget-neutral and will require budget cuts in other areas.
A clause in the offer states that if no agreement is reached by March 31 2022 on the 2022/2023 salary adjustment, the cash allowance will continue to be paid to all employees. The offer translates to an 11.7% wage increase for the lowest-paid public servants.
Hospersa and the National Teachers Union (Natu), both representing about 100,000 public servants, announced at the weekend they had accepted the government’s wage offer, after a meeting at the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council on July 9.
Hospersa general secretary Noel Desfontaines said in a statement that signing the agreement on the back of the country’s struggling economy “outweighs the losses [workers] would make by waiting any longer for an increase or even participating in any industrial action to force government to improve on the current offer”.
Cosatu public sector unions chief negotiator Mugwena Maluleke, who is also general secretary of Sadtu, told Business Day on Monday that Sadtu signed the wage offer on July 13.
Zola Saphetha, general secretary of Nehawu, which represents 280,000 public servants, said the union will “not sign any agreement outside baseline”.
In a statement issued on Monday, Reuben Maleka, assistant GM of the PSA, which represents about 235,000 public servants, said the PSA will “accept” the wage offer after finalising its mandate-seeking process on July 22. The PSA declared a dispute at the bargaining council recently and its members had voted for a strike.
“The PSA was set to serve the employer with a strike notice after its members voted in favour of such action to apply pressure on the employer to pay attention to employees’ pleas for a salary adjustment to sustain themselves,” said Maleka.
The public service unions had demanded a wage increase of the consumer price index plus 4% across the board for 2021/2022, but the government said there was no money.
Unions and government have not yet resolved the third year of the 2018 agreement, after the government reneged on paying agreed upon increases. That case comes before the Constitutional Court in August. Should unions win, the salary baseline will be increased, which is what the government has tried hard to avoid in this year’s agreement.
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