Public-sector unions would discuss the proposal for a comprehensive wage offer made by independent mediators on Monday, their negotiator said.
”We are taking proposals back to the unions to develop a response — and convene again tomorrow [Tuesday],” said vice-chairperson of labour on the Public Sector Coordinating Bargaining Council, Shireen Pardesi.
The settlement range of the proposed wage package was 7,25%, she said.
On Sunday, after another impasse in the public-service wage talks, independent mediators came up with their own proposal of how a comprehensive wage offer should look.
Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi would not comment on the proposal on Monday
morning.
”As government we shall be engaging with the proposal today [Monday] and we shall be ready to return to the bargaining chamber at 2pm tomorrow [Tuesday],” she told reporters ahead of a Community Development Workers’ conference in Midrand.
Fraser-Moleketi would not discuss the specifics of the new deal nor what the government thought of it.
Charles Nupen and Meshack Ravuku, who have been mediating between the parties since Friday, drew up the document, which was handed to government and union negotiators late on Sunday night.
”We had an opportunity to be with both parties, to interact with them, and out of that we have come up with proposals that we believe will be able to appease the parties to reach settlement,” said Ravuku.
Government’s chief negotiator Kenny Govender and Pardesi, the unions’ chief negotiator, both assisted the mediators in coming up with the new proposal.
Details of proposal have not been made public.
Last week public service unions reduced their demand for a 12% wage hike to 10% while still rejecting government’s
6,5% offer.
‘Industrial action is not a battlefield’
Meanwhile, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported that the unions had rejected the mediators’ proposal.
On Monday, Fraser-Moleketi once again condemned the intimidation that had taken place during the strike, as well as essential-services workers refusing to stay at their posts. She said arrests and prosecutions would follow.
”Industrial action is not a battlefield. What we’ve seen is completely unacceptable, both in terms of leadership and levels of intimidation.”
She said that a teacher at entry level currently earning R72 000 a year would earn R99 000 after the increase, which would be effective from January 1 2008. Nurses would get 22% more in pay over and above their annual increases, effective from July 1, 2007. – Sapa