The Citizen reports that President Cyril Ramaphosa is headed for his first potentially bruising duel with Cosatu as the labour federation threatens to pull out of the upcoming jobs summit, and potentially end the ruling alliance, if his government goes ahead with its alleged plan to retrench 30,000 civil servants.  

The public sector’s biggest union, the National Education Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu), threatened to “fight fire with fire” against the retrenchments.  The outcry came as reports surfaced about a plan by Cabinet to retrench more than 30,000 civil servants in the next three years as a way to reduce the state wage bill to meet the Ramaphosa government’s budgetary austerity and realise a lean administration.  Treasury has apparently set aside R4 billion for this financial year to kickstart the process of issuing severance packages.  Nehawu’s Zola Saphetha reacted:  “As Nehawu, we will vehemently reject any job losses in the public service because of austerity measures meant to remedy the debt burden of the public service.  Workers will not continue to vote for a party that does not go out of its way to protect jobs and prioritise service delivery, hence it should not take our support for granted.”  Cosatu entered the fray and even threatened to pull out of the jobs summit that Ramaphosa has planned later this year.  The SA Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) described the plan as an “outrageous slaughter of jobs”.  But Public Service and Administration Minister Ayanda Dlodlo denied government planned to implement mass retrenchments as reported.

• Read this report by Eric Naki in full at The Citizen

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