National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (NEHAWU) says the decision to enter into a three year multi-term wage agreement is meant to create among other things, harmonization at the workplace in the legislative sector.
This follows the conclusion of wage talks. The union has signed and accepted a 7.5% wage increase for this year, backdated to the 1st of April.
This will be followed by an increase based on inflation plus 1.25% for two more years from 2024 to 2026.
The deal will benefit workers in the Parliament and eight provincial legislatures except the Western Cape Legislature.
NEHAWU National Co-ordinator and Chief Negotiator S’thembiso Tembe who is also NEHAWU chairperson in Parliament elaborates on the importance of the agreement.
“Multi-term is important in a sense that it gives stability, it gives surety, it takes away stress from workers of sitting without knowing whether they will get increment or not. So, through this particular multi-term it also allows the employer of the sector, the legislative employer of the organisation to plan accordingly for the following years in which we will be negotiating. So, they will have plenty of time in the next three years to plan and budget, to ensure that come the year of negotiations at the end of the multi-term, they would have budgeted accordingly to ensure that workers are paid their increases. So it’s very important that we have signed this particular agreement,” Tembe explains.
