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BL Premium reports that public service unions representing a majority of SA’s more than 1.3-million public servants seem about to accept a 7.5% sweetened pay hike deal.
The unions, which had demanded an 8% wage increase, embarked on a mandate-seeking process that ended on Friday, after the state had raised its offer. “We are busy consolidating the data and crunching the numbers. But preliminary results show that members are accepting the 7.5% offer,” Reuben Maleka of the Public Servants Association (PSA) indicated on Monday. He said the unions concerned, including Sadtu, Naptosa, Satu and Hospersa, would like to wrap up the process by the end of the week. According to Maleka, the signing of a wage agreement would allow the 7.5% pay hike to be implemented on 1 April. The proposal includes a pensionable cash gratuity. A separate agreement was being negotiated on housing allowances, while medical insurance was not part of the current round of talks, Maleka said. The 7.5% wage offer is set to increase the R690bn compensation spending by the state to more than R741bn, so raising concerns about the government’s fiscal consolidation efforts as the Treasury had pencilled in an average annual growth rate of 1.6% in government employee salaries for 2023/2024. The Treasury would need to explain how the final public sector wage agreement outcome will affect the planned fiscal metrics and sustainability path as outlined in the budget, noted North-West University Business School economics professor Raymond Parsons.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Luyolo Mkentane at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)
- Read too, SA civil servants signal acceptance of state pay hike, at Fin24
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page