ELLIS MNYANDU, Johannesburg | Tuesday
PLANS for a national strike remained in place despite strong expectations of progress in the wage talks between the 12 public sector unions and government.
Thembela Khulu, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Service and Administration, said the state is to meet unions for further talks to try to resolve a four-month old wage impasse.
”As far as I’m concerned the parties are progressing well and we expect to progress further in the upcoming round of talks,” she said.
”But I can’t say if there will be a strike or not (following the talks). Things really depend on whether unions are happy with the result of the talks.”
The National Education Health and Allied Workers Union (NEHAWU) has threatened to go on a national strike if there is no immediate resolution to the wage impasse and if union demands for better service conditions are not met.
NEHAWU representative Pule Rameetsi said that the negotiations were at ”a make or break” stage. ”We have to settle, or else we are headed for a dispute which would mean a strike,” said Rameetsi, a member in the joint-party bargaining caucus.
No date has yet been set for a possible strike.
Economists and monetary policy watchers are monitoring the public service wage talks closely for clues about the likely impact of any wage hike on rising domestic inflation and to see if the widening rift between the ANC and COSATU could be bridged.
NEHAWU, which has 240000 members on the state payroll, is the biggest of the 12 public sector unions, representing about 1.1 million government employees including teachers, nurses and the police.
It is also an affiliate of South Africa’s 1.8 million Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), which in turn is a coalition partner in the government.
The union demands include a halt to the scaling down of worker benefits, such as medical aid, housing and leave allowances proposed by the state as it seeks to curb the public service wage bill.
They have also demanded wage increases of between 9% and 16%, while the gobvernment is offering an across-the-board 6% wage hike.
Rameetsi said most of the unions in the bargaining caucus felt it was high time outstanding matters were resolved.
NEHAWU said in a statement that it was going into the talks with a sense that nothing new will come from government and therefore a strike in the public service was inevitable.
”At the heart of our strike will be an attempt to reverse the devastating impact that GEAR is having on public service, service delivery, job loss bloodbath, inexplicable obsession with monetary and fiscal restraint,” it added. – Reuters