Thousands of striking employees at the Revenue Service (Sars) affiliated to the Public Servants Association (PSA) have returned to work pending the outcome of their demands to President Cyril Ramaphosa.
This has resulted in the number of Sars branches closed across the country easing to about 30 from a previous high of almost 50 recorded last week.
The PSA, which represents more than 5,000 of Sars’s estimated workforce of 13,000, together with the National Education Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu), are demanding above-inflation pay hikes of 11.5% and 12% respectively.
They have rejected Sars offer of R70m to fund pay rises and a further R430m as a one-off gratuity payment for the 2021/2022 financial year, saying it would mean an increase of just 1.3% and a one-off R3,000 cash gratuity. The R500m offer was set out in a confidential document leaked to Business Day recently.
The two unions began the industrial action in May before suspending it to give talks a chance. They resumed it two weeks ago after parties could not reach an agreement, with both unions vowing the strike would continue until Sars revised its 1.39% pay hike offer currently on the table.
In a media briefing in Pretoria on Wednesday last week, PSA assistant GM Reuben Maleka called on Ramaphosa to intervene to break the wage deadlock, claiming criminals were taking advantage of alleged lax security at borders due to the strike.
“We expect the president to intervene and respond by August 1. [If he fails] we will ballot members for a strike,” Maleka told Business Day on Monday.
“Most of our members have returned to work pending [Ramaphosa’s] response to our demands.” Nehawu deputy general secretary December Mavuso told Business Day that the union had not taken a decision for its members to return to work in the interim, saying: “They are still in the picket lines.”
Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, could not be reached immediately for comment.
Sars has insisted that revenue collection was continuing, amid concerns that the wage strike could throw a spanner in the works of the tax collection season, which began on July 1, and lead to undercollection of revenue.
The tax agency reported a surplus of R16.7bn in April, taking tax collection to R1.563-trillion during the 2021/2022 financial year. Sars’s wage bill of almost R8bn makes personnel costs the biggest driver in its total expenditure of R11.7bn.
Meanwhile, PSA is among public service unions demanding a revised 6.5% from the employer, having previously demanded as much as a 10% increase from government.
The state has argued before the public service co-ordinating bargaining council (PSCBC) — a platform where the employer and unions discuss and agree on wages and other conditions of employment — that its R1,000 after-tax cash gratuity equates to 4.5%, taking its overall pay rise offer to 6.5% when combined with a 2% cost-of-living adjustment offer.
Maleka said parties were due to meet for conciliation talks at the PSCBC on August 3, and if the matter were not resolved, public servants including teachers, nurses and doctors, together with the Sars employees, could embark on a joint strike that could disrupt schooling, customs and immigration services, hospitals and government departments.
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