Four more public service unions were issued with strike certificates yesterday after marathon talks failed to break the wage deadlock at the public service co-ordinating bargaining council (PSCBC), bringing the country a step closer to debilitating strike action that could cripple government services.
The strike certificates effectively give the Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA (Denosa), National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu), Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru), and Health & Other Services Personnel Trade Union of SA (Hospersa) the right to give the employer a seven-day notice of their intention to embark on industrial action.
A strike could cripple government services and disrupt end-of-year school examinations, and health services.
The four unions declared a dispute at the PSCBC after rejecting the government’s final revised 3% offer, including continuation of the R1,000-a-month after-tax cash gratuity ending in March 2023.
The SA Policing Union (Sapu) and Public Servants Association (PSA) were issued with strike certificates late in October. The PSA, representing more than 235,000 public servants, has already served the government with its intention to down tools.
Denosa, Nehawu, Popcru, Hospersa, Sapu and the PSA collectively represent more than 787,000 of the more than 1.3-million public servants in SA. Cosatu’s public service unions rejected the offer, with the exception of the SA Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu), which accepted the government’s 3% revised offer.
Finance minister Enoch Godongwana, who has been trying to rein in the growth of the more than R660bn public sector wage bill to an average annual rate of 1.8%, pencilled the 3% wage hike into the medium-term budget policy statement last week, saying it was in the best interest of the fiscus and public servants. Each percentage point in the public sector pay deal costs the fiscus R6.5bn, or about 0.1% of GDP. Godongwana said implementing the 3% offer “does not undermine the collective bargaining 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 Reserve Bank has forecast for 2022.
However, when acting public service & administration minister Thulas Nxesi wrote to the PSCBC notifying it of his intention to unilaterally implement the 3% offer, the unions reverted to the 10% initial demand.
Impasse
Conciliation talks were held by parties, including the four unions and officials from the National Treasury and department of public service & administration at the PSCBC chambers from Monday to Tuesday, but failed to break the impasse.
PSCBC general secretary Frikkie de Bruin said: “The aim of the conciliation process was to settle the public service wage dispute. After much discussions, unfortunately, the parties could not settle on the matter.
“Therefore, the matter remains unresolved and the conciliator has issued a certificate on nonresolution in line with the provisions of the Labour Relations Act.
“Either party may exercise their rights in terms of the applicable provisions in the Labour Relations Act. The PSCBC will continue to support parties to council in their attempts to find an amicable solution to the impasse,” he said.
Speaking to Business Day moments after the Tuesday meeting adjourned, Denosa deputy general secretary Khaya Sodidi said: “The matter remains unresolved, so what happens now is that Denosa, Nehawu, Popcru and Hospersa have been issued with certificates of nonresolution. We are starting the balloting process, where we will be consulting our members on the way forward. We will be guided by them on how to go forward.”
PSA national manager Claude Naicker and assistant GM Reuben Maleka could not be reached immediately for comment. Sapu spokesperson Lesiba Thobakgale said: “We are busy completing our balloting process at the moment, and we will take it from there.”
Nehawu deputy general secretary December Mavuso said: “We are going to have an NEC [national executive committee] meeting this weekend where we are going to make a final decision on the way forward. At the same time we are going to conduct a strike ballot, and decide when to serve the employer with a strike notice. So, those are the processes that will unfold.”
Nehawu, which represents more than 180,000 nurses, doctors, pharmacists, cleaners, dispensary and reception clerks, community health workers, ambulance and morgue workers, community care workers and laboratory technicians, among others, is one of Cosatu’s more militant unions.
It was part of public service unions that took the government to court after it refused to implement the last leg of a three-year wage deal reached in the PSCBC in 2018, citing a lack of funds.
In February the Constitutional Court ruled the government could back out of the deal as the unions had been “unjustifiably enriched” from the “impugned collective agreement”.
Nehawu was also among the Cosatu unions that recently called on the labour federation, a key ANC ally, to dump the governing party and support the SACP during the national elections in 2024.
During a march to the Union Buildings in Pretoria in September, where unions demanded government intervention in the rising cost of living and socioeconomic crises dogging SA, Zizamele Cebekhulu, president of Popcru, which represents 160,000 police, prisons and traffic officers, stressed that the union members “will go on a strike” in support of their demands for higher wages.
Department of public service & administration spokesperson Moses Mushi said: “We respect what’s happening in the bargaining council currently. The government is implementing the 3% offer and continuation of the R1,000 cash gratuity, but negotiations [must continue].”
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