Africa-Press – South-Africa. The next three weeks will be crucial to the ongoing public service wage talks as most unions consider the government’s upward revised offer of a 3% wage increase, while three are dead set against it and are mulling strike action.
In late August, the government raised its wage offer from 2% to 3% during a mediation process aimed at breaking a deadlock in the discussions.
Among those considering the offer and taking it to the membership for a mandate are the Public Servants Union (PSA), and affiliates of Cosatu.
However, the Policing, Prisons and Civil Rights Union (Popcru) and the South African Federation of Trade Union’s (Saftu’s) two public service affiliates, the South African Policing Union (Sapu) and the National Union of Public Service and Allied Workers (Nupsaw) have already rejected the offer.
Wage demands by unions in the public service wage talks range between 4% and as much as 10%. The rising cost of living and the government’s decision to renege on its 2018 wage agreement with labour, which was upheld by the Constitutional Court last year, worsens the tension in this round of talks.
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Saftu said it would support Sapu and Nupsaw in rejecting the offer.
“If a 3% increase and a non-pensionable cash gratuity are implemented, this would mean that public service workers (public servants) would have lost real increases to their wages and pensions for three consecutive years since 2020,” Saftu said in a statement.
Sapu spokesperson Lesiba Thabokgale told Fin24 that the union called all public sector unions to unite and reject the offer. He said Sapu had already lodged a dispute in the public service wage talks and was set to hold a strike ballot with membership soon.
“We are rejecting the 3%. Our initial demand was 10% and we moved down to 8%. We are not in favour of the 3% and the gratuity. We want 8% on the baseline. We have lodged a dispute already, so those processes are unfolding. We are just waiting to go to conciliation and then we will ballot with our members,” said Thabokgale.
The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) said in a statement that it fervently rejected the current wage offer tabled by the government.
“Since the beginning of the 2022/23 salary negotiations, we have been fully participating in these negotiation processes, only to conclude that the employer is not willing to put a better offer on the table,” the statement said.
Popcru said the increase should be above inflation on the baseline, which will increase the notch and pensionable increase. The union said it would still be holding a national march to the union buildings on 20 September to submit a memorandum to President Cyril Ramaphosa over their grievances.
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Last chance
The 3% wage offer came as the PSA was undertaking a strike ballot in the public service wage talks. With a new table offered, that strike ballot is now null and void. However, if the new wage offer is rejected, the risk of a strike in the public service by the PSA remains ominously high.
The PSA, which has about 235 000 members, most recently tabled a 6.5% wage increase demand at the talks. If the union rejects the 3% wage increase offer and embarks on a strike, it would be the union’s first industrial action in 12 years.
PSA assistant general manager Reuben Maleka said the union would now take the latest offer from the government to its membership around the country. He warned that, depending on what PSA members decide, this could be the last chance that the government has to avoid a strike by the union in the public service.
“We gave the membership until Friday next week. The strike ballot was overtaken by events. We will have to see what next week Friday tells us. The strike ballot was on the 2% offer and this offer is 3%. The balloting is null and void and overtaken by events. If members reject this 3% then the only option that remains is to strike,” said Maleka.
Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa) spokesperson, Sibongiseni Delihlazo, told Fin24 that the union intended to get a mandate from membership within the 21-day period, which would determine the union’s next move.
Asked what the Cosatu bloc of unions made of the government’s 3% wage offer, their negotiator Simon Hlungwani merely said “mandating is in process”.
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