Today's Labour News

Independent on Saturday writes that government workers are drowning in debt, making them more susceptible to poor work performance and financial misconduct.

Last week the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru), the SA Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) and the Public Servants Association (PSA) warned that their members were struggling to make ends meet despite a 4.7% increase earlier this year. They said the situation was so bad that many public servants had to sell their cars and homes to service their debts. In some instances, they have resigned from their jobs to access money from their pension funds. On Friday Popcru, which represents 160,000 police, traffic and correctional service officers, said the situation had affected its members’ morale, making them vulnerable to wrongdoing. Popcru spokesperson Richard Mamabolo said they would never condone unethical behaviour, but anything could happen when someone was desperate. Reuben Maleka from the PSA, which represents 245,000 workers across government, commented: “The majority of public servants are in a dire situation. There was a survey that shows 85% of public servants’ monthly salary is consumed by having to pay all the debt, so the disposable income left for anything else is around 15%. Some are even asking how they can resign just to ensure that they can recover something through their pension to protect (against) repossession of their assets such as houses and cars.” Nomusa Cembi from Sadtu said many public servants, whose salaries had to stretch to accommodate families and extended families, were not happy with the wage increase unions settled on last year. “We had to take it because when we surveyed our members they said they did not have an appetite to go on strike because if they did, there is no work, no pay,” she pointed out.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Wendy Jasson Da Costa at IOL News

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