Public sector unions representing the country’s teachers, nurses, police and prison officials have tabled a list of joint demands for wage increases at a rate more than double that of inflation .
This underscores the tough negotiations ahead and has the potential to pit the more than 1.3-million public servants against the government of national unity (GNU), SA's largest employer.
The primary demands tabled on Tuesday at the public service co-ordinating bargaining council (PSCBC) — a platform for the employer and employees to negotiate and agree on wage deals and other conditions of employment — include a one-year 12% wage increase across the board.
Consumer inflation eased to 4.6% in July, the lowest rate since July 2021, from June’s 5.1% due to softer price rises in food and transport due to a lower fuel price.
The unions’ other demands include a R2,500 housing allowance increment across the board and that the danger allowance be increased from the current R597 to R1000, a performance bonus, bursary schemes for dependents of government employees, and permanent employment for education/teacher assistants, community health workers and reservists.
PSCBC spokesperson Oomang Parag did not immediately respond to questions .
Department of public service and administration spokesperson Moses Mushi said the employer would not negotiate through the media.
The wage negotiations for the 2025/26 financial year come after the country’s public servants received a wage increase of 4.7% on April 1, in line with a wage deal signed by the employer and four unions at the PSCBC in Pretoria in March 2023. Employees set to benefit do not include senior management.
The two-year pay deal translated into public servants getting a wage increase of 7.5% during 2023/24 and projected consumer price inflation for 2024/25.
The two-year wage agreement was signed by the SA Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu), Public Servants’ Association (PSA), National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of SA (Naptosa), and the Health and Other Services Personnel Trade Union of SA (Hospersa).
At the time it was said the 7.5% wage offer was set to increase the R690bn compensation spending by the state to more than R741bn, raising concerns about the government’s fiscal consolidation efforts as the Treasury had pencilled in an average annual growth rate of 1.6% in government employee salaries for 2023/2024.
Compensation spending is expected to surge to R760bn in 2025/2026, growing at an average yearly rate of 3.3%, according to the Treasury.
Mike Shingange, president of the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu), Cosatu’s largest trade union, which did not sign the two-year wage deal at the PSCBC in 2023, told Business Day in April: “The 2025/26 wage negotiations won’t be easy because workers want to claw back … losses suffered over the past five years, since the reneging on the last leg of the wage deal signed in 2018.”
Relations between the government and unions soured after the state reneged on implementing the last leg of a three-year wage deal signed in 2018, citing a lack of funds.
Nehawu boycotted the 2023/24 wage negotiations due to the wage impasse of 2022/23, which resulted in the employer unilaterally implementing a 3% increase in October 2022.
In his budget speech in February, finance minister Enoch Godongwana said R251bn would be used to fund salaries of public servants and the government was exploring other measures, which would be tabled for discussion in the PSCBC “as part of a broader discussion on containing wage bill growth”.
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