The government has refused to give in to demands by disgruntled public service unions for a 10% wage increase and instead called on parties to go back to the public service co-ordinating bargaining council (PSCBC) to resolve outstanding disputes.
Public service & administration acting minister Thulas Nxesi in his response to a list of demands by labour federations Cosatu, Saftu and Fedusa, whose members marched to the National Treasury on November 22, said the government remained committed to engagement with organised labour on a variety of issues of mutual and national concern.
These included the national fiscus, job creation, the filling of vacant funded posts within the public service, and buffering public service employees against cost of living shocks.
“It is for this reason that government again calls on parties to the PSCBC to return to the negotiation table where any outstanding disputes can be resolved,” Nxesi said in his response dated November 30, which Business Day has seen.
“Returning to the negotiation table will also allow for the 2023/24 wage negotiation process to commence, so that it informs the National Treasury budgetary process, in line with the Public Service Summit resolution.”
Public service unions including the National Education Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu), Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru), Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA (Denosa), Public Servants Association (PSA), the SA Policing Union (Sapu) and the Health and Other Service Personnel Trade Union of SA (Hospersa), had been threatening to embark on an indefinite strike after Nxesi unilaterally implemented the government’s final, revised 3% offer for public servants, as per figures in the medium-term budget policy statement of October 26.
The unions were issued with strike certificates after parties could not agree at the PSCBC. They are demanding a 10% wage increase, citing the rising cost of living that has seen substantial increases in food, fuel, electricity and transport costs.
The government has been trying to cut the wage bill which eats up more than a third of government spending. Each percentage point in the public sector pay deal costs the fiscus R6.5bn, or about 0.1% of GDP.
The unions accused Nxesi of undermining collective bargaining when he unilaterally implemented the 3%, but the acting minister said in his response — in which the PSCBC and finance minister Enoch Godongwana were copied — that the government remained committed to collective bargaining.
“There is no intention by government to wither the utility of the bargaining council. The PSCBC is an institutional manifestation for the democratic aspirations of all stakeholders represented therein, which gives all South Africans hope for a peaceful wage negotiations regime and sustained labour peace,” he said.
Unions are still angry that the government refused to implement the last leg of a three-year wage deal signed in the PSCBC in 2018, citing a lack of funds. The Constitutional Court ruled in February that the government could back out of implementing the last part of the agreement as the unions were “unjustifiably enriched” from the “impugned collective agreement”.
In a detailed response to the three labour federation’s memorandum of demands, the department of public service & administration (DPSA) said it became clear in 2019 that the public service wage bill growth pattern was unsustainable and unaffordable in the long term as it grew faster than revenue collected.
The DPSA said balanced measures were therefore required to ensure that increases to the wage bill were manageable, without freezing salaries and eroding the buying power of public servants, and ensuring that growth in salaries did not crowd out social expenditure.
“The referral of the dispute regarding the last leg of 2018 to the courts by some of the trade unions admitted to the PSCBC deprived the parties of an opportunity to find solutions within the collective bargaining framework with the result that the courts imposed a decision on the parties, which was unfortunate. Government is therefore unable to go against a court order as that would be unlawful,” the department said.
To enhance the PSCBC’s supremacy and collective bargaining, “government has committed to ensuring that the wage negotiations process informs the budgeting process and not the other way around”.
“This approach will enhance the powers and legitimacy of the PSCBC as it will inform the budgeting process led by the minister of finance. To ensure that this aim is realised, we again call on organised labour to return to the PSCBC to resolve any outstanding disputes and commence with negotiations for the upcoming 2023/2024 financial year,” the department said.
On the 10% wage demand, the DPSA said the employer remained committed to continue engagements with labour to ensure public servants’ livelihoods “are protected, within the available fiscal resources”.
“This will be achieved within the balancing of competing spending priorities which include among others, social protection for the vulnerable, wage increases and the need for additional headcounts in critical service delivery areas such as the health, education and security cluster.”
Between the 2008/2009 and 2019/2020 financial years, the government increased public servants’ salaries with higher than inflation adjustments, the DPSA said.
DPSA spokesperson Moses Mushi said the department had not received a response from the unions.
Nehawu spokesperson Lwazi Nkolonzi said: “We will be meeting as the three federations. Afterwards, we will communicate our comprehensive response and way forward.”
mkentanel@businesslive.co.za
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