The government stuck to its guns on Tuesday in the current pay dispute with public servants, saying the current salary demands of the public servants were not realistic.
Public-service unions rejected a revised offer of a 6,5% pay rise by the government on Monday and are demanding a 12% rise.
”The offer on the table has to be sustainable. We cannot have a situation where the [state’s] wage bill is 20% of gross domestic product [GDP]. That is unsustainable,” Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi told reporters at Parliament.
The government’s current wage bill was 8,2% of GDP before the 2007/08 adjustments still to be introduced.
Public-service unions’ demand for a 12% raise would take the bill to 20% of GDP, the minister said.
The government had already exceeded the amount it had expected and was considering bringing money forward from the later years of the medium-term expenditure framework.
The new offer amounted to R13,7-billion — R4,4-billion more than the original R9,3-billion offer and an extra 3,3% increase on the wage bill.
It meant the lowest paid worker would get an increase of 18,7% in effect, including benefits, and earn R76 122 a year (currently R69 282).
Asked about reports the unions had rejected the offer, Fraser-Moleketi said it was difficult to say what they had turned down.
The government had presented its new offer to the unions on Monday and there was a need to engage with the proposal on the table.
”The ball is in the court of the unions at this time, and we are waiting for them to engage with us at the table,” she said.
Fraser-Moleketi also warned striking workers against acts of intimidation or harassment.
While the right to strike was respected and guaranteed in the Constitution, ”industrial action is not a war”.
The rights of those wanting to carry on working also had to be respected and essential services had to continue.
There had even been reports of nurses being pulled from wards by their striking colleagues.
Such action would not be tolerated. It was a direct violation of the Constitution and the rule of law.
Criminal charges would be pressed in cases where the perpetrators were clearly identified, Fraser-Moleketi said.
The impact of the strike had been largely seen in the education sector, and in ”pockets” of the health sector.
It was concentrated mainly in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and in parts of the Eastern Cape, Limpopo and Mpumalanga.
Members of the South African National Defence Force’s medical services corps had been deployed in some areas and had helped considerably to alleviate the situation in the health sector, she said.
‘Mobilising’
Meanwhile, members of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) were being ”mobilised” to join the strike, the union said on Tuesday.
”We are mobilising our members for huge strike action … in the absence of a resolution to the current impasse as we believe the demands are noble,” said NUM general secretary Frans Baleni.
Baleni said the union, with over 280 000 members in the mining, construction and energy sectors, fully supported the public-service unions’ demand for a 12% pay rise.
These unions have rejected the government’s latest offer and vowed to continue strike action that began on Friday last week.
Baleni said: ”Our children and those of our members attend public schools, go to public hospitals and depend on public police services for safety, and those providing these services should be properly remunerated so that we can all expect quality service.”
Counter-proposal
The independent public-service labour unions met in Pretoria on Tuesday to come up with a counter-proposal to government’s revised pay package offer.
The Independent Labour Caucus (ILC) started its meeting at about 1pm to come up with a new proposed pay package after it, along with other public-service unions, on Monday night rejected government’s revised offer.
The South African Teachers’ Union (SAOU), part of the ILC, said in a newsletter to its members that the ILC’s counter-proposal would be discussed with the Congress of South African Trade Unions to see if they could come up with a combined counter proposal.
”An attempt will be made to proceed with negotiations, but the present problems with the strike and essential services will have to be addressed. Hopefully negotiations will proceed later in this week,” SAOU said in its newsletter.
The ILC represents almost 40% on unionised public servants.
Meanwhile, the Western Cape department of health on Tuesday denied giving notices threatening disciplinary action and even dismissal to members of the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu).
In the eyes of the department, all health workers are essential staff and are forbidden to strike.
Nehawu’s Cape metro secretary Thembela Gazi said some members of the union from Karl Bremer and Lentegeur hospitals had been given notices stipulating disciplinary action against, or even the dismissal, of these members.
Nehawu members were ”so intimidated” by the notices, said Gazi.
He said the provincial branch of the union was currently in a conference with their national department about how to deal with these notices.
Provincial Department of Health spokesperson Faiza Steyn said there was ”nothing like that” and ”nothing of dismissal” being issued by the department.
Bomb scare
KwaZulu-Natal police dealt with bomb scares at two hospitals, the department of home affairs offices in Durban, Pinetown Magistrate’s Court and a Pietermaritzburg school on the second and third weekdays of the strike this week.
However, provincial health officials reported improved staff attendance at hospitals across the province on Tuesday.
The province’s health department chief operating officer Nhlanhla Nkosi said that there had been a bomb scare at Durban’s Addington Hospital.
It was the second hospital in two days to have had sniffer dogs going through the premises to prove it was a hoax.
On Monday, Durban’s Wentworth Hospital was also victim to a hoax call.
Police spokesperson Superintendent Vincent Ndunge confirmed that there had been a third hoax call at the department home affairs in Durban and a fourth bomb scare at the Pinetown Magistrate’s Court.
”We will investigate these incidents separately, but we cannot tolerate such hoax calls. We cannot afford these sort of actions.” — Sapa