- The Public Servants Association plans to serve the government with a seven-day notice of strike on Monday.
- Government has appealed to the CCMA to intervene as talks deadlocked.
- A 3% wage hike may be unilaterally imposed.
- For more stories, go to the News24 Business front page.
Amid fears that government may unilaterally impose a 3% wage hike, the Public Servants Association (PSA), which has 235 000 members, plans to serve the government with a seven-day strike notice on Monday.
Meanwhile, government has asked the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) to intervene urgently in the deadlocked wage talks.
PSA national manager Claude Naicker told News24:
We plan on serving notice this morning. The minister [acting minister of Public Service and Administration Thulas Nxesi] has already given notice to the bargaining council that he plans to invoke that section (5). That provoked us to give notice of our strike action. He decided unilaterally that he would implement it in the council. There are attempts to get us back to the table, but we believe those are delaying tactics.
Section 5 of the Public Service Act allows government to enforce salary increases unilaterally, as long as doing to does not reduce wages and benefits.
Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana is expected to table a medium-term budget policy statement in Parliament on Wednesday that will make room for a 3% increase. Meanwhile, unions are maintaining their wage demands, which range between 5% and 10%.
The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union is the only union that resolved to accept government’s 3% wage offer.
READ | Teachers union breaks ranks, says it will accept govt’s 3% wage offer
Meanwhile, Public Service and Administration director-general Yoliswa Makhasi wrote to the director of the CCMA, Cameron Mogajane, on Friday, asking that it urgently intervene to break the deadlock at the public service wage talks.
“I write this letter deeply concerned about the current impasse in the 2022/23 public service negotiations at the PSCBC [Public Service Coordinating Bargaining Council] and requesting your indulgence on the matter. The current round of public service wage negotiations at the PSCBC took a much longer period than anticipated, having commenced on the 4 May 2022 when labour tabled their demands,” said Makhasi.
The PSCBC’s deadlock-breaking mechanism resulted in the final offer of a 3% pensionable increase and R1 000 monthly cash allowance for the current financial year, a commitment to backdate increase from the first of April. The council adopted the offer as a draft resolution and circulated it to parties for their consideration.
“It is unfortunate that the draft resolution did not enjoy the majority support from labour,” said Makhasi.
She said that with Godongwana tabling the medium-term budget policy statement to Parliament on Wednesday, the department needed to conclude a deal to contain unforeseeable and unavoidable expenditures in terms of section 30 of the Public Finance Management Act.
READ | Risk of strike looms again as unions declare fresh public service wage dispute
She said reaching an amicable solution to the current impasse was “extremely urgent” to manage the risk of public servants not receiving any salary increases for this financial year, as the wage negotiations are not concluded before the medium-term budget policy statement process.
Makhasi invited Mogajane, through the CCMA, to assist in breaking the current impasse at the PSCBC.
“We are cognisant of the dispute resolution processes under way at the PSCBC and we have no intention to undermine or frustrate such processes. As the government, we remain committed to the processes of collective bargaining and joint resolution-seeking initiatives,” she added.
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