With 700Â 000 public servants on strike for the second week and the strike toll mounting, the government is considering the unilateral implementation of its pay offer.
A senior government official, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Mail & Guardian this week that top government leaders, including President Thabo Mbeki, were becoming angry and impatient about the prolonged dispute.
Mbeki is said to have been deeply embarrassed that a national strike by government employees formed a backdrop to this week’s World Economic Forum conference in Cape Town, where political and business leaders gathered to debate Africa’s economic future.
‘We have done this before, during the 1999 public service strike. I don’t see why we can’t do it now,” said the official, who is close to Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi.
The unilateral wage increase in 1999 played a significant role in prompting a return to work.
The signs of growing government fury over the strike are unmistakable. In Parliament this week, Mbeki attacked strike-related violence, asking: ‘What kind of society are we building? What moral lessons are we imparting when insults, violence against fellow-workers and damage to property become the stock in trade during protests of this kind?â€
In the statement after its Wednesday meeting, the Cabinet said tartly that (union) accusations of government intransigence in the dispute were ‘based on misinformation and at best misleadingâ€.
It said no amount of anger could justify the violent disruption of mid-year exams, the trashing of an operation theatre in a hospital or preventing a pregnant mother from accessing urgent medical attention. This situation was ‘totally unacceptableâ€.
The Cabinet directly attacked union leaders, saying the ‘irresponsible utterances†of some of them, amounting to incitement, was ‘of great concern to governmentâ€.
Also in a statement this week, the ANC called on labour to stop personalising the dispute by singling out Fraser-Moleketi for ridicule when she was merely representing the government’s collective position.
Under the Public Service Act, Fraser-Moleketi can unilaterally implement the government’s final offer if the parties in the bargaining council cannot solve a dispute.
Public service unions this week rejected a 7,25% wage increase proposed by mediators, standing firm on a 10% demand, while the government indicated it was ready to accept the mediators’ proposal.
Government negotiators are expected to table their final offer at a meeting on Friday. If that is rejected, Fraser-Moleketi would unilaterally impose a wage award, said the government source.
Kenny Govender, chief government negotiator, said he was not aware of plans to implement the final offer. But he emphasised that the government was very concerned about the damaging impact of the strike.
‘We want to bring the dispute to an end,†Govender said. The government was prepared to agree to the mediators’ proposal of 7,25%, provided labour also did so. ‘There is no more money. It will take a lot of hard work from our side to even settle at 7,2%,†he added.
Fikile Majola, general secretary of Cosatu’s health union Nehawu, said that any suggestion that the minister might opt for unilateral implementation was ‘a provocationâ€. Labour was working hard to ensure that a settlement was found this week, Majola said. This was despite 3 000 workers receiving dismissal notices.
On Wednesday, strikers took to the streets in their tens of thousands in major centres across the country to protest against the government’s wage offer, describing it as ‘an insultâ€.
Meanwhile, Cosatu on Thursday hit back at Mbeki’s assertion in Parliament that insults and violence against fellow workers and damage to property had become strikers’ ‘stock in tradeâ€.
‘This gives an entirely false impression that the unions have condoned or even encouraged such conduct. This is totally untrue,†the federation said.
The strike toll
- Labour says 700Â 000 public service workers have been on strike since June 1.
- According to labour, 3Â 000 workers, mainly in the health sector, have received dismissal notices.
- Striking teachers have each lost at least R4Â 600 in wages, and school support staff R1Â 600.
- A total of 28 strikers have been arrested on charges ranging from violating the Public Gatherings Act to damage to property and contravening the court interdict against strikes by essential workers.
- Between 400 and 500 emergency patients have been diverted from public to private hospitals, pushing ICUs and neo-natal units at smaller hospitals to 100% occupancy.
- About 150 private schools have closed, mainly in KwaZulu-Natal.
The mediators
Who are the two independent mediators breaking their backs to bring the polarised parties in the public service dispute closer together? asks Tumi Makgetla.
Meshack Ravuku (52) was the key mediator in the violent three-month security strike last year. His negotiating experience includes work at the Chamber of Mines, Anglo Platinum and Telkom.
Ravuku is familiar with the parties involved in the current pay battle, as he is a panelist at the Public Service Coordinating Bargaining Council, where the talks are taking place.
In a weary voice, he describes the talks as ‘challenging, very challengingâ€. Thursday was a day of rest and recovery. Mediation was set to resume the next day.
Ravuku spent 13 years as the chief negotiator for the Chemical Workers Industrial Union. In the 1990s he moved to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), where he spent three years as a full-time commissioner. Now he is a director of the independent mediation institute Tokiso and a part-time senior commissioner at the CCMA.
Ravuku holds a diploma in industrial relations. He received training at the Independent Mediation Service of South Africa (IMSSA) and completed a course at Oxford on comparative industrial relations. He spent time at Acas, the British equivalent of the CCMA.
Charles Nupen falters when I ask which economic sectors he has worked in as a mediator. ‘Just about every one,†he finally answers.
Nupen mediated in two previous public service strikes and has worked in the mining and banking sectors, having co-facilitated the Financial Sector Charter. He chairs negotiations between SAA and its pilots.
The 56-year-old lawyer graduated from the University of Natal, and went to become the president of the National Union of South African Students. He spent several years as a trade union lawyer and later served as a director of IMSSA. In the late 1980s and early 1990s he moved into political dispute management. He helped usher in the 1994 election as a commissioner of the Independent Electoral Commission and, after establishing the CCMA in 1996, became its first director.
He is currently a technical adviser to the International Labour Organisation on a local project looking at enter-prise competitiveness, and runs a consultancy in conflict management and strategic planning services.