Glenda Daniels
An angry and militant mood has gripped the country’s workforce, and now an indefinite strike is on the cards by more than 500?000 public servants. This will happen after the Congress of South African Trade Union’s (Cosatu) anti-privatisation strike next week.
Millions of workers are saying enough is enough and are putting the blame squarely on the shoulders of the government’s macroeconomic policies for all the present and looming industrial action.
“If you think the union leadership sounds angry, you should listen to the workers. They are blaming the government’s economic policies and the budget for the crisis. Teachers and nurses are leaving the country because of low salaries and we need their expertise,” says Thulas Nxesi, general secretary of the largest public sector union, the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu).
“No real consultation is taking place in the public service, everything is determined by the budget and inflation targets and they plan to give us 1% less than inflation. The government’s macroeconomic policies are responsible for the wage cut backs and workers are seeing this.
“What message are they sending out when they give themselves up to 15% increases? And we have seen a loss of 150?000 jobs since 1994? This is right-wing populism at its best.”
Six public sector unions, including the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union, the National Education Health and Allied Workers’ Union and Sadtu, want an increase of 9% for lower-paid workers and 7,5% at the top end. The public service administration is offering 5,5%.
Public service unions will ballot their members after the anti-privatisation strike and are likely to go on strike immediately. The government said this week that if their employees went on the anti-privatisation strike it would apply the “no-work no-pay” rule.
Cosatu’s Neva Makgetla says the savings the government makes through its tight fiscal policies and from privatisation proceeds are “misleading, as the benefits are not felt by the poor because of the spending on arms deals”.
Meanwhile the motor strike, now in its third week, is still on even though 20?000 National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) members accepted a 9% wage increase offer. There are outstanding non-wage demands to be settled. These include a two-year wage agreement and the right to strike at plant level.
Another Numsa dispute was settled this week when petrol attendants lowered their 12% demand and accepted an 8% wage increase from the Retail Motor Industry Organisation. This will come into effect from September 1 and has avoided a strike by about 50?000 workers. Most petrol attendants work for close to 12 hours a day for as little as R25 a day.
Members of the South African Clothing and Textile Workers Union (Sactwu) have also downed tools. A settlement was reached in the Western Cape this week when workers accepted a 6,47% increase, but in Gauteng employers have frozen wages, offering 0%.
Workers have made the connection between the government’s policies and their immediate plight, says Sactwu’s national organising secretary Wayne van der Rheede. The clothing industry has lost 22?756 jobs from July 1999 to June this year and since 1995 there have been 114?983 job losses.
“The tariff policy of the Department of Trade and Industry has led to the job losses,” Van der Rheede said.