Glenda Daniels
Half-a-million public service workers cast strike ballots this week in a wage dispute that masks the real tensions between labour and the state.
“The wage issue is not the fundamental one here. The issues are really about human development, restructuring and retraining of staff,” says Vusi Nhlapo, president of the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union.
The government described rumours that 120 000 public service jobs were on the line as untrue and irresponsible.
For the government the central issue is cutting the state wage bill and improving service provision. It wants to redeploy and retrain workers and, as a last resort, retrench. It concedes restructuring has been slow and unsatisfactory.
At a public service summit this year the state and unions agreed on the need to create quality jobs. However, there was open disagreement on whether this implied cuts to the state’s million-strong workforce.
Nhlapo complains that the restructuring of the state sector on the agenda since 1995 lacked coordination. There was no upward mobility of staff, no retraining, no skills strategy, and service delivery remained inefficient. The skills audit the unions had demanded as a means of identifying whether and where retrenchments were needed had not taken place.
The flight of nurses and teachers from state service continued, as did outsourcing of auxiliary services such as laundry and security.
“Over the past five years 300000 jobs have been lost,” Nhlapo says. “Junior managers are now in charge of assessing human resource needs.”
The government had linked its 5,5% wage offer to the creation of 20000 jobs, suggesting that a larger award will threaten job creation.
“The majority of these jobs will be created in the police force,” Nhlapo says.
It is understood that the restructuring issues, including retrenchments, will be on the agenda after the wage dispute is resolved.
Nhlapo says the public service needs to start focusing on crucial and neglected areas, such as the revamping of security in hospitals and retention of skills in South Africa by linking skills and remuneration.
In the wage dispute the unions are demanding a 9% increase. The government says it is 5,5% and the public service is offering 5,5%, which it says will add R4,1-billion to the current R92-billion wage bill.
It says the 20000 new jobs it plans to create will cost R1,6-billion.
Thulas Nxesi, general secretary the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union, described the linking of new jobs to the 5,5% offer as “dishonest”.
“The aim yet again is to pit us against the public There has been no proper follow-up from the public service job summit earlier this year. There is still no proper skills audit. We still don’t know which areas are going to be ‘right-sized’ or ‘downsized’.”
The skills audit, which was done by private consultants, was withdrawn by the government in favour of an assessment, by managers in various government departments, of skills needed and capacity. The unions say that these are junior managers who are bungling the process.
Alvin Rapea, Deputy Director General in the Department of Public Service Administration, says the restructuring process has been slow. The deadline to submit plans to the National Treasury had been in June, and the medium-term expenditure framework committee was considering departmental budgets over the next three years.
Before full-scale restructuring could happen “strategic and human resource plans will have to be in place”. These are expected to be ready in October.
Says Rapea: “There has to be a satisfactory outcome for everyone. The talk of 120000 job losses is irresponsible and untrue and has to be seen as excitement to put pressure on government. Retrenchments will be the last resort and will take place only after redeployment has been exhausted.
“The government cannot be reckless in the process. The government is getting frustrated by labour’s delaying tactics on restructuring.”
Rapea acknowledges that the 5,5% wage offer is linked to the creation of 20000 public-service jobs, the majority of which will be created in the policing and health sector.