Unions vow to plunge public service into chaos after wage talks deadlock
Pretoria - Unions have vowed to plunge the public service into chaos following the collapse of negotiations and threats by Acting Minister of Public Service and Administration, Thulas Nxesi, to unilaterally implement the 3% salary increase.
Unions affiliated with Cosatu launched a veiled attack on its sister union, the South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu), for accepting the offer while leaving others to engage in protracted negotiations with the government.
While there is a rejection of the offer across the unions, they, however, differ on strategies to fight against the impasse in the negotiations.
Yesterday, the Public Servants Association – an independent public sector union with more than 300 000 members – served the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council with a notice to strike on November 3.
The union said it had a conciliation meeting with the government in terms of the Labour Relations Act, which was facilitated by the bargaining council, but those negotiations stalled.
However, it said it remained prepared to resolve the matter through negotiations at the level of the bargaining council. While the union has set a strike date, Cosatu-affiliated public sector unions, except Sadtu, yesterday indicated that they were pinning their hopes on a conciliation meeting with the government on October 31 and November 1.
Union leaders also lunched a veiled attack on Sadtu for its decision to accept the 3% salary increase offer and a 4.5% gratuity payment.
In the attack on Sadtu, Cosatu’s Joint Mandating Committee convenor Simon Hlungwani insinuated that it did not have a mandate from its members to take such a decision.
“All unions take mandates from their members,” Hlungwani said.
“There is nothing strange in that.”
National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union official, December Mavuso, was more blunt, saying: “It is not happening for the first time. We should not raise an alarm about it,” Mavuso said.
Sadtu – the second biggest union in Cosatu – was not part of the briefing at Cosatu House yesterday.
Despite the teachers’ union signing the deal, other Cosatu unions were adamant that the 3% salary increase offer was not on the table following a deadlock on October 3.
“As things stands, there is no offer on the table,” Hlungwani said. “The decision by the employer to opt for the draft resolution falling away was confirmed in the council sitting of October 3.
“The employer had an option to reopen the matter for discussion or negotiation. However, they chose otherwise.
“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 bargaining council dispute resolution mechanism,” Hlungwani said.
The unions also lambasted Nxesi for allegedly trying to implement salary increases ahead of Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana delivering his Mid-Term Budget Statement in Parliament tomorrow.
Describing the planned move, Hlungwani said: “It is very deceitful for the employer to want to present a narrative in the public that seeks to vilify the mandate of workers and the bona fide principle of collective bargaining.”
He further said that they noted growing tendencies of continuously undermining collective bargaining, which would ultimately render the bargaining council devoid of power and purpose.
Hlungwani said the same tendency was seen when the very employer chose to go to court, leaving the majority of Cosatu unions stranded in the arbitration process during the dispute on non-implementation of the last leg of the bargaining council resolution 1 of 2018.
“The arbitration process was clearly stipulated in the resolution. When we were following the process guided under the auspices of the bargaining council, the employer left us in the lurch when we were ready to respect the prescripts of the institution.”
Cosatu said it would engage in various protest actions at various workplaces across the country until October 31. They threatened that they would seek a new mandate if the government failed to meet their 10% salary increase.
“It is prudent that we must fight for a better wage increase than what is offered. Having considered the economic outlook of the government, our demandsfor a higher percentage above CPI is informed by the fact that the three main items (food, electricity and public transport) which drives the expenditure patterns of our members is way above the set CPI.
“Considering all factors, the present inflation has set workers on a negative economic path.
This round of negotiations is muddied by the persistent intention of the employer to uphold austerity measures even at the detriment of labour peace,” Hlungwani said. They also vowed to report the government to the International Labour Organization.
Pretoria News