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City Press reports that, despite a last-ditch emergency meeting over the weekend between government and public service unions to avert full-blown industrial action, no consensus was reached and yet another deadlock was declared.
A public sector strike now looks likely to happen next month. A series of meetings held on 7, 9 and 10 May were described by unions as “make-or-break” facilitation discussions, prior to a final decision on whether to forge ahead with strike action. Reuben Maleka of the Public Servant Association (PSA) confirmed that meetings had been held over the weekend and other stakeholders had also been roped in to try to avert another stalemate, but to no avail. This latest declaration of a deadlock comes just weeks after unions had indicated in April that a general strike by public service workers looked set to go ahead because negotiations had failed to yield their desired outcome. Unions are understood to have stressed through their facilitators that the past two budgets had taken R300 billion from the wage bill. They called for an end to austerity budgets, pointing out that “while most major developed and developing countries have decided to spend their way out of the crisis with stimulus packages of $16 trillion, or 16% of world GDP, South Africa has plans to withdraw nearly R300 billion from the economy over the next three years”. Both unions and facilitators have highlighted concerns that negotiators for the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) and National Treasury who were roped in were not in a position to make any decisions. “Unless the so-called principals get involved, I don’t see how they can move forward,” said a facilitator. The DPSA and Treasury have maintained that, due to the current economic climate, caused in part by the Covid-19 pandemic, government was unable to offer any increases to public servants.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Juniour Khumalo at City Press
- Read too, No end to deadlock between government, unions in public service salary dispute, at Independent Media
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page