More strikes loom in major sectors of the economy, with labour watchers suggesting that the worker militancy surrounding the public-service strike is feeding into other pay disputes.
Strikingly, many of the disputes involve black and white unions.
Already, the costs to the economy of the public service strike, which entered its 22nd day on Friday, is estimated at more than R100-million, with public servants forfeiting close to R4-billion in wages. Government and union negotiators will resume talks on Friday, in what has been described as a “make-or-break” encounter.
Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi has made it clear that if the unions spurn the government’s new offer, which includes a 7,5% wage increase, she will unilaterally implement the earlier offer of 7,25%.
The state has also offered to raise its housing subsidy offer from R456 to R500 a month and to reinstate all the estimated 3 000 essential service workers dismissed for striking.
Another implication of a unilateral pay award would be that dismissed workers will not recover their jobs.
Fraser-Moleketi’s ultimatum has enraged many unionists, with Fikile Majola, the secretary of Cosatu’s health union, Nehawu, slamming it as “disingenuous”.
On Wednesday Nehawu and the South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) asked for more time to canvass members on the government’s new offer. Apart from Sadtu, which stood by its 10% demand, most unions had indicated they would settle for a wage increase of not less than 8%.
Majola said if the workers rejected the offer, the strike would continue.
Meanwhile, the mining, chemical, petroleum, electricity and engineering industries were bracing themselves for industrial action over wages.
This week, the National Union of Mineworkers and Solidarity declared a dispute with the gold mines in the Chamber of Mines after negotiations deadlocked. The unions want a 15% wage increase, while the chamber, which includes Harmony, Gold Fields and AngloGold Ashanti, has refused to table an offer, saying it needs time to examine the unions’ proposals.
Dirk Hermann, Solidarity’s deputy general secretary, said he found the companies’ response “astonishing”. “Refusing to make a wage offer to workers is asking for trouble. There is a climate of strikes and parties must do everyÂthing in their power to avert a breakdown in trust. The chamber is doing the exact opposite,” he said.
Justifying the unions’ 15% demand, Hermann said inflation for workers was running at 2% above consumer inflation. Their cost of living was increasing by between 8% and 9% a year.
Last week, Cosatu’s metal affiliate, Numsa, and other unions in the engineering industry including Solidarity, threatened a nationwide strike after the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of South Africa rejected their pay claims.
The unions want an 11% wage increase, while the employers are offering 6,8% for workers at higher levels and 7,3% for those in the lower-income category.
In the chemical and petroleum industries Solidarity and Cosatu’s chemical and energy union, Ceppwawu, are mobilising their members for a national strike after employers rejected their demand for 13,5% and 12% respectively.