The Public Servants Association (PSA) says it is willing to return to the negotiation table with government following a deadlock over wage increase.
The talks stalled after government proposed to increase salaries on condition that workers forfeit some of their current benefits.
All public sector unions have rejected the offer.
Assistant General Manager, Reuben Male, says they are being undermined.
“We are willing to negotiate but we cannot do so if you are moving from a 0 percentage from the employer. Strangely so, the local government was given 2.8% but the provincial and national were given 0 percent. It doesn’t make sense that government says there is no money but at one level of government they have given 2.8%. We are dealing with a situation where we are being undermined,” says Male.
The public sector should not be excluded
Labour federation, Cosatu, agrees with PSA that the public sector should not be excluded from wage increases as government had allowed for some State-Owned Enterprises and Parliamentary workers to receive salary hikes.
Cosatu’s chief negotiator for public sector unions, Mugwena Maluleke, says, “There are frontline workers who have been there for our people, rendering certain services. They must explain how they managed to give the Parliamentary workers an increase in the midst of the pandemic and the SOEs the go-ahead to give 6% increases. We were in the midst of the pandemic last year but they don’t give the public servants increases. What process did they use to give to some and not to the others?”
Cosatu plans to embark on a nationwide public sector strike on Workers’ Day.
In the video below, unions demand a 7% increase:
