City Press reports that trade unions are calling on Finance Minister Tito Mboweni to reverse his stance on not increasing public servants’ salaries when he delivers his “emergency” revised budget next month.
Mboweni plans to be ready to table the budget, which will make provision for the Covid-19 coronavirus relief efforts, by 24 June. Trade union federation Cosatu and its affiliate Nehawu have called on Mboweni to use this “second chance” to make amends and try to fix his fractured relationship with workers. “We hope the minister will use this opportunity to do the right thing and make the money available to honour the last leg of Resolution 1 of 2018 as it stands,” said Nehawu’s Khaya Xaba. Cosatu’s Sizwe Pamla forthrightly said that they expected the minister to pay workers back the money “that he stole from them”. Meantime, the unions have taken a resolution not to renegotiate what they have described as “a legally binding agreement concluded in 2018”. Instead, Nehawu, with Cosatu’s support, last week filed an application for arbitration and is anticipating that it will be set down in the first week of June. The last conciliation meeting between the parties ended in a stalemate on 6 May, when government tabled an offer of half of the agreement reached in 2018. “The suggestion was that workers must get gratuity payments over 12 months, which equal half or 50% of the percentage increase due to them in terms of Resolution 1 of 2018,” Xaba indicated. That was rejected.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Juniour Khumalo at City Press
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