A union representing 160,000 police, corrections and traffic officials, is to march to the Union Buildings on Tuesday to submit a list of demands to President Cyril Ramaphosa in response to the government’s final offer of 3% pay rise, which the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) rejected.
The government tabled a final 3% offer at the public service co-ordinating bargaining council (PSCBC) on August 30, but Popcru spokesperson Richard Mamabolo said union members has rejected the offer as they want an inflation-beating increase.
Public service unions were given 21 days to seek a mandate from their members on the 3% which includes a R1,000 after-tax cash gratuity payable to all the more than 1.3-million public servants until March 2023.
The government previously tabled a 2% wage offer citing lack of funds before hiking it to 3% to match the 3% increase offered to ministers and their deputies, premiers, MECs, MPs, MPLs, judges and traditional leaders recently.
It has been trying to rein in the R665bn public service wage bill, which eats up more than a third of its spending, to an average annual rate of 1.8%.
Its final offer of 3% to public servants is below the headline inflation rate of 6.5% the Reserve Bank has forecast for 2022.
The unions initially demanded a 10% increase when talks began in May, but trimmed the figure down to 6.5% in an effort to reach a pay deal without having to strike, which could bring some government services to a halt and disrupt schooling, clinics and hospitals.
Mamabolo said the union “fervently rejected” the 3% offer as workers had no increases since 2020. “We have issued a statement to this effect.”
The Constitutional Court ruled in February that the government could back out of implementing the last leg of the three-year agreement signed in the PSCBC in 2018 as the unions were “unjustifiably enriched” from the “impugned collective agreement”.
The ruling was widely watched by ratings agencies and markets and viewed as a shot in the arm of the government’s budgetary commitments to restrict growth in the wage bill which ballooned from R154bn in 2006/2007, R518bn in 2018/2019 and to about R630bn in 2020/2021.
Mamabolo said members in the criminal justice sector spent about 90% of their pay on basic needs, did not qualify for free government housing and “cannot afford bonded houses”.
“As a union, we are of the view that what they [government representatives] have put on the table [3%] is an insult. Inflation is currently at 7.8%, having accelerated to an over 13-year high ... in July of 2022,” Mamabolo said.
“Our view is that the increase should be above inflation on the baseline, which will increase the notch and pensionable increase.”
Workers across various sectors such as steel and manufacturing, energy, and automotive industries have been demanding inflation-beating increases to cope with the rising cost of basic foodstuffs, electricity, transport and fuel.
“In the past three years, prices of goods and services have skyrocketed, and through released quantifications and surveys, it has become clear that workers are no longer able to cope, while the employer is busy coercing unions to sign. As a union, we have a mandate and responsibility to implement what our members mandated us, and will stick to this mandate,” Mamabolo said.
Among others, the memorandum will detail issues that government departments have failed to address over the years, “which have had a negative impact on the work of law enforcement officers”, Popcru said.
Thobile Ntola, the former president of the SA Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu), and now secretary-general of the South African Liberated Public-Sector Workers Union, told Business Day on Sunday the 3% offer would do little to improve civil servants’ socioeconomic conditions.
“We are rejecting it. A mere 3% won’t make any meaningful change, if you look at inflation. It won’t have any impact on food, housing, and transport costs,” Ntola said.
December Mavuso, deputy general secretary of the National Education Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu), one of labour federation Cosatu’s largest affiliates with a membership of 108,000, said: “We are finalising our mandating process.”
Speaking to Business Day on Sunday, Sadtu general secretary Mugwena Maluleke said: “We are going back to the bargaining council on September 23. We will know then how many of our members have accepted or rejected the revised offer.”
Reuben Maleka, assistant GM of the Public Servants Association (PSA), which represents more than 200,000 members, said: “We are waiting for the final audit of our mandating process. We will know by Monday how many members are in support of the 3% and how many are rejecting it. We have until September 28 to pronounce our formal position at the PSCBC.”
PSCBC spokesperson Oomang Parag said they were waiting out the 21-day period to reconvene. “The parties will pronounce when they are ready to meet. They have not indicated as yet.”
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.