Trade union leaders are turning the screws on President Jacob Zuma’s new administration to pay state employees a living wage.
Cosatu public sector unions’ chief negotiator, Alex Mohapi, told the Mail & Guardian this week the federation will table demands for pay increases of not less than 10% in the public service bargaining council on Friday.
Mohapi said they would take account of backlogs left over from the 2007 wage deal and workers’ declining living standards because of inflation. A bargaining report prepared for Cosatu by its research arm, Naledi, finds workers’ wages have shrunk by 3.6% in the past two years.
The report says that although the average increase in the past year was 7.7%, average inflation in 2008 was 11.3% — meaning that workers have taken a pay cut.
It says that inflation on specific necessities was extremely high, with the price of grain rising “a staggering” 33.4%, fuel and power by 27% and household consumables by 25.6%. People in the low and very low expenditure groups experienced an inflation rate of about 15.5%.
Putting further strain on Zuma’s government are Cosatu’s demands for the implementation of the Occupation Specific Dispensation (OSD) for state employees agreed after the 2007 public service strike.
Cosatu earlier had threatened “uncontrollable” strike action if the government refused to implement the OSD. Cosatu president Sdumo Dlamini said the federation would also press for changes in macro-economic policy, including inflation targeting, which it blames for high interest rates and job losses.
In an apparent tilt at elements in the ruling party, he warned that Cosatu’s improved relationship with the ANC under Zuma should not be used to force it to demand lower wages.
“We cannot demand anything less than two digits because workers have been hit very hard [by the economic crisis]. For anyone to say now that we are in recession workers should demand less it is unfair,” said Dlamini.
Dlamini attacked Zuma’s assertion in the National Assembly that South Africa had been cushioned from the worst effects of the global financial crisis because of the government’s prudent macroeconomic policies.
He countered that government policies had led to a haemorrhage of jobs in a range of sectors.
“While few jobs have been created, millions have been lost. We can’t blame everything on recession and justify policies that don’t work,” Dlamini said.