Cosatu’s largest unions on Monday reverted to their initial wage demand of 10% as government was considering unilaterally implementing the final 3% offer ahead of the medium-term budget policy statement (MTBPS).
Yoliswa Makhasi, director-general of the department of public service & administration (DPSA), has written to Cameron Morajane, director of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) requesting his intervention to break the wage deadlock at the public service co-ordinating bargaining council (PSCBC).
Makhasi wants Morajane to assist in efforts in hammering out a pay hike deal as parties have failed to find each other during the drawn-out negotiation process which started in May. Any wage deal would have to be factored into the MTBPS and, in the absence of an agreement, workers would forfeit increases for a second year in a row.
In the letter dated October 21, which Business Day has seen, Makhasi said reaching an amicable solution to the impasse has become “extremely urgent for us in order to manage the risk of public servants not receiving any salary increases for this financial year, [if] the wage negotiations are not concluded before the MTBPS process”.
“It is on that basis, without undermining the processes of the PSCBC, that we wish to request your indulgence and invite you through the CCMA to assist in breaking the current impasse between the parties at the PSCBC,” Makhasi stated.
“The MTBPS process includes adjustments to the budget to cater for, among other things, additional funds for unforeseeable and unavoidable expenditure as per section 30 of the PFMA [public finance management act].
“In this case, the unforeseeable and unavoidable expenditure is estimated at R14bn to cater for the 3% salary adjustment across the board for employees on salary levels 1 — 12. This is an additional amount to the R20.5bn that is in the budget for the financial year 2022/23,” she said.
Asked for comment on the letter, DPSA spokesperson Moses Mushi said: “They [CCMA] have acknowledged receiving it . We are awaiting response from the CCMA to advise on the process.”
Unions initially demanded a 10% increase when negotiations began in May, but went down to 6.5% to match the headline inflation rate the SA Reserve Bank has forecast for 2022.
The government opened the talks by proposing a freeze on pay rises before gradually revising the figure upwards with offers of 1.5%, 2% and then 3%, including the 1.5% automatic pay progression and continuation of the R1,000-a-month after-tax cash gratuity, which will end in March 2023.
DPSA acting minister Thulas Nxesi told the PSCBC in a letter dated October 17 that he was contemplating unilaterally implementing the 3% offer as time was running out ahead of the MTBPS.
Section 5(5)(b) of the Public Service Act empowers Nxesi to unilaterally implement the final offer on condition that any such offer does not reduce existing pay or other service benefits.
Invoking the clause will enable finance minister Enoch Godongwana to provide certainty on the direction of the R665bn public sector wage bill, the containment of which underpins the credibility of his promises on fiscal policy. The wage bill takes up more than a third of government spending.
Three teachers’ unions — including the SA Democratic Teachers Union, an affiliate of Cosatu — have accepted the 3% offer.
Other large Cosatu unions, including the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu), Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) and the Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA (Denosa) rejected the offer and declared a dispute at the PSCBC. The matter is set for conciliation from October 31 to November 1.
In a media briefing in Johannesburg on Monday, Simon Hlungwani, convener of Cosatu’s joint mandating committee, said the 3% offer was “withdrawn” by the employer after a majority of unions rejected it in the bargaining council.
“With the offer having been withdrawn, we have now gone back to our initial demand of 10% across the board on the cost of living adjustment and invoked the PSCBC dispute resolution mechanism,” Hlungwani said.
“It is prudent that we must fight for a better wage increase than what is offered ... Considering all factors, the present inflation has set workers on a negative economic path.” Hlungwani said the unions’ 10% demand remained justified in the tough economic times workers face. He said Cosatu would report the government to the International Labour Organisation over its conduct during the wage negotiations.
Nehawu deputy general secretary December Mavuso lashed out at Nxesi’s “desperation” for wanting to get a wage deal “by hook or crook”.
“It has never happened in [the] public service [sector] before that in the middle of dispute, you threaten to unilaterally implement an offer. This desperate act is problematic. If it were to happen [for Nxesi to implement the offer], then it would confirm that collective bargaining is under threat in SA,” Mavuso said.
He said it was “premature” for the DPSA to call for the CCMA’s intervention on the matter.The PSCBC conciliation process is scheduled to get under way from October 31 to November 1.
Meanwhile, Claude Naicker, national manager of the Public Servants Association of SA, which represents more than 235,000 public servants, confirmed that the union served government with a seven-day strike notice on Monday. The PSA has rejected the 3% pay rise offer and was issued with a strike certificate recently.
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