Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moloketi and Nehawu secretary general Fikile Majola offer a post mortem of the recent mass action. The Mail & Guardian‘s Matuma Letsoalo reports
Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi
Did you underestimate the strength of the strike?
No. We expected them [unions] to have mobilised. We anticipated that it would affect educators. But we did not expect essential-services workers to engage in the strike. The impact of the strike was not across the public service, but was more extensive on the health sector than we had expected. We did not expect the strike to take that long.
Shouldn’t you have put the 7,5% offer on the table before to avoid the strike?
We never dealt with percentages. We always had a package, but this was never engaged by labour. We could not anticipate the strike. There were no real negotiations from labour. There was no indication that they intended moving from 12%. The real negotiations took place on May 28 when mediators were brought in.
Do you think the mediators went into the negotiations too late?
This had to be a decision from both parties. Meshack [Ravuku, an independent mediator] was initially involved in the conciliation on April 11 and 12 and the government indicated that there should be a continuation of the conciliation, but the unions decided to declare a dispute. We had always been committed to having a third party.
Is it your impression that ordinary South Africans where sympathetic to the strike?
In the beginning, yes – there was a lot of public sympathy for workers, especially for teachers. But I think that sentiment changed as the strike continued. You saw intimidations, clear prevention of members of the public from getting into hospitals … The conduct of some union members and leaders was uncalled for.
Do you think your initial decision to fire essential-services workers was a bad move?
The dismissals were necessary and in line with the Labour Relations Act. It did not backfire. In fact we saw a lot of workers going back to work after we issued notices.
How much money will government spend in terms of the new package?
I am not quite sure, but it is in the region of about R16-billion.
How does this impact on the government’s salary bill?
Currently government is spending 9% of the GDP on the salary bill. The wage package would mean an increase of about 3,5% over and above that.
How are you going to raise the money?
We have decided on the amount. Treasury has engaged on this already to ensure that the money will be available.
It would seem your strategy to issue an ultimatum on the final offer worked well, but some have described it as disingenuous and negotiating in bad faith.
People are free to interpret it in their own way. We engaged labour for 22 days. We had reached a point where we had to put a final offer. We felt there was no point to draw the strike out any further. The country needed certainty. We could not allow a strike to go on while we knew that we could not go beyond the amount. As government we had a responsibility to bring the strike to a close.
Fikile Majola
Did you bow to pressure by finally accepting the 7,5% offer from the government?
We didn’t. Actually, we think this is a victory for workers coming out of the strike action.
Are you worried about the amount of money that teachers and nurses lost in wages during the strike action?
We are worried. It is almost a month now. We are trying to mitigate this in the settlement agreement by saying government should not implement once-off deductions to workers. This theory was just something to intimidate workers not to strike.
Union negotiators stood firm on their 12% demand for about three weeks after the dispute was declared. Was this your negotiating strategy or did you just want to strike against the government?
The 12% demand had to be pursued by negotiators because that was the agreed position by the unions. For it to be revised, it would have taken time.
Now you have decided to settle at 7,5%, why did you not move on your demand earlier to avert the strike?
We did not have the 7,5% on the table earlier, it only came to 7,5% a week ago. The nature of the discussions is that there are simply too many unions. For us to change a particular position would take a long time. Nehawu’s initial demand was between 8% and 12%, but we had to agree to the 12% demand because the majority of unions agreed on that.
Some observers believe the strike was not only about wages, but a way to show your anger against President Thabo Mbeki and the government’s macro-economic policies.
Not Mbeki as such. The government, yes. In 1996 we entered into a historic three-year agreement. Firstly this was to implement the pay structure to ensure there were no racial disparities, discrimination against women et cetera. The agreement was an important milestone.
But immediately after [the growth, employment and redistribution strategy] Gear was introduced, there was something called Personnel Expenditure Review, which looked at portions of the government’s expenditure on personnel as a proportion of GDP. They came to a conclusion that the proportion of public expenditure was too high and needed to be reduced. This was consistent with the Gear policy.
Do you think at some point the unions have forfeited their sympathy because of the level of violence?
Not at all. The level of sympathy has been high and was sustained up to the end. In general, except for the SABC, the media has been sympathetic as well. However, there were beginning to be signs that more people would be worried if intimidations continued.
As union leaders were you concerned about that?
In our sector, except from Jo’burg Gen, Kalafong hospital and part of KwaZulu-Natal, we never received complaints of violence. The only complaint was that non-striking workers were forced to join the strike.
What did you do to curb the violence?
We did not do anything physically. The central executive committee of Cosatu made a call a few weeks ago to say we are opposed to the strike. And I personally think that was a good thing. I want anybody to challenge us to say there was violence in this or that hospital and you as Nehawu did nothing. Of course there were serious exchanges between unions and workers about the fact that some unions allowed their workers to work. It was not workers against the public, but it was a conflict among workers themselves.
Do you have any plans to deal with the general violence and intimidation in the future?
How would there be any plans when we did not experience general violence. The only thing that is a challenge to us is to ensure that unions have all their members on strike actions.
There is a perception that unions pay lip service to the idea of peaceful strikes?
That’s an unfortunate perception. Unions know very well that without a peaceful strike, they would not win public support. Everybody seems to suggest that because of some isolated incidents, we should condemn our members. If we do that, it would discourage them during the strike action.
At times the government has accused the unions of negotiating in bad faith.
Because they were playing games. Negotiations are not a chess game. The reason we stood firm on the 12% demand … was that we knew government could not change its offer substantially.