The cash-strapped government has seven days to respond to a list of demands by the Public Servants Association (PSA), whose members marched to National Treasury offices in Pretoria on Thursday calling for above-inflation increases.
In a show of force, thousands went on marches across the country to register their unhappiness over the government’s unilateral implementation of a 3% wage offer for the country’s more than 1.3-million public servants.
The PSA’s one-day strike followed a deadlock in negotiations at the public service co-ordinating bargaining council recently, resulting in the union receiving a strike certificate. This was after acting public service & administration minister Thulas Nxesi implemented the government’s final offer of a 3% increase as per the numbers in finance minister Enoch Godongwana’s medium-term budget policy statement on October 26.
The move was seen as a win for the government, which is trying to rein in the public sector wage bill to an average annual growth rate of 1.8%. At more than R660bn, staff costs account for more than a third of government spending.
“As far as I am concerned, we have pencilled in 3% and we have pencilled [that] for the next few years as part of the carry-through costs of that 3%. Whether there will be an agreement above that I can’t say, but I doubt [it],” Godongwana told Business Day on Tuesday. “There’s no money, that’s all I know.”
At the Pretoria march, union members held placards reading: “Give us Phala Phala money, done deal, case closed”, “No to 3%”, “Reject 3%, time to fight back”, “Stop attacking collective bargaining” and “Public servants are bleeding”. Other placards said, “We want a real salary increase, no manga manga business”, and “Government still owes us our 2020 salary increase”.
Addressing marchers outside the Treasury offices in Pretoria, PSA president Lufuno Mulaudzi accused the government of taking public servants for granted, saying “we are rejecting this nonsense of 3% they are giving us”. The union’s members said they are tired of being poor and living below the breadline due to the rising cost of living on sharp increases in the prices of food, fuel, transport and electricity.
Mulaudzi handed over a list of demands to Treasury acting COO Laura Mseme which called for a one-year, 10% increase across the board and the continuation of the R1,000 after-tax cash gratuity beyond March 2023.
“We are dealing with a very arrogant government. We can’t tolerate this kind of nonsense. They were not mandated by anyone to implement 3%. We are not backing down [from our demands]. We are giving him [President Cyril Ramaphosa] seven days to respond to our demands,” Mulaudzi said, stressing that failure to do so would result in a total shutdown of government services.
Mseme promised the demands would be forwarded to Godongwana, who she said was on an international trip.
Besides Gauteng, the PSA, which represents more than 235,000 members and is affiliated to the Federation of Unions of SA (Fedusa), led marches in the Eastern Cape, the Northern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State, and a march to parliament for Cape Town.
Department of public service & administration spokesperson Moses Mushi claimed the one-day industrial action had no effect on government services as employees were largely at their workstations.
“None at all,” Mushi said when asked about the strike’s impact on service delivery. “Public servants are at work, things were just normal, we didn’t have any disruptions.”
PSA assistant GM Reuben Maleka disagreed, saying: “The strike was a success. Our members went all out, and it was not just PSA members, there were others from various unions too supporting the workers’ cause.”
Maleka said should the government fail to respond satisfactorily to the PSA’s demands within a week, “we are going to intensify and make sure there’s a full-blown indefinite strike in the public sector”.
The PSA and public service unions aligned with Cosatu initially demanded a 10% wage increase at the start of negotiations in May but lowered the figure to 6.5% in line with the headline inflation rate forecast by the Reserve Bank for 2022.
When Nxesi announced he would implement the 3% offer, which includes a R1,000 aftertax gratuity that ends in March 2023, the unions reverted to their 10% demand.
Public service co-ordinating bargaining council (PSCBC) general secretary Frikkie de Bruin said in a statement this week the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union, the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union, the Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA, the Health and Other Service Personnel Trade Union of SA and the SA Policing Union “have all been afforded certificates of nonresolution”.
De Bruin said these unions would have the right to issue a seven-day notice to the PSCBC to commence with strike action “when and if they decided to do the same”.
Oxford Economics Africa senior political analyst Louw Nel said : “Time to find a resolution to the impasse between unions and government is running out, and union leaders recognise that with the festive season fast approaching, the opportunity to strike is now.”
Updated: November 10 2022
his article has been updated with new information throughout.
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