Failure to increase salaries could lead to anarchy, warns Nehawu

“This application (was) brought on a simplistic basis as if it was the purchase of a cheese

burger.”

COSATU’S biggest affiliate, the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu), earlier this week warned government that its failure to increase public servants’ salaries could lead to anarchy in the country.

Advocate William Mokhari SC, representing Nehawu, told the Labour Appeal Court that the union was opposed to the government’s counter application to have the 2018 wage agreement declared unenforceable, unaffordable, offending public policy and unlawful.

The government claimed in court that the agreement contravenes parts of the Constitution that dictate how money in the national revenue fund should be spent and provisions relating to national, provincial and municipal budgets.

Instead, Mokhari said, the government should have found a way to implement the resolution in phases because everybody knows that the Covid-19 pandemic has not only affected South Africa but the entire world and the country has been hit by credit downgrades and corruption has eroded the state’s fiscus.

”The fiscus is not doing well, Covid-19 was a final nail in the country’s economy,” he said.

However, Mokhari said this did not mean that the government must not honour agreements. "What we have before the court is a government that does not play with open cards. Courts should encourage the state to respect its obligations. The government must lead by example and respect its obligations, others will follow,” he said.

Mokhari continued: “What the government is doing in this matter is to invite anarchy and it must not be allowed to do so”.

He said the government’s counter application has no merit and is an attempt to get out of lawful obligations, which must not be allowed.

According to Mokhari, as recently as April, the state indicated that it was fully committed to the implementation of this resolution but simply does not have money.

Ngwako Maenetje SC, on behalf of Cosatu affiliates, the SA Democratic Teachers’ Union, the Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA and the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union, said the court must not allow the government to walk away from its obligations but must meet them as the rule of law requires collective agreements to be honoured.

He said the application by the Public Servants Association (PSA), which approached the court with other affiliates of the Federation of Unions of SA representing state employees to enforce the agreement, should be upheld and the government’s counter application dismissed.

Boyce Mkhize, representing the National Union of Public Service and Allied Workers Union, said the counter application does not have merit and that the PSA’S application to enforce the agreement should be upheld by the Labour Appeal Court.

Jeremy Gauntlett SC, arguing for the National Treasury, said the unions have made their bed and now they must lay in it.

”This application (was) brought on a simplistic basis as if it was the purchase of a cheese burger,” he said.

Gauntlett said there was an attempt to enforce that which is invalid as the agreement did not comply with the Public Service Regulations, which regulates the mandating and management of negotiations as well as matters with fiscal implications during the collective bargaining process.

He likened the unions’ demands with taking 60% of the country’s resources to take care of 2% of the population.

Gauntlett said there was an offer of R13.5 billion to stop the current litigation but unions rejected it.

He described the Covid-19 pandemic as a particularly difficult and dark time and that the government was justified to take the step of launching its counter application. Gauntlett said the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) was now defending fecklessness.

Tim Bruinders SC, who was representing DPSA, said the government had a fiscal limit of R110 billion approved by the National Treasury and Parliament.

However, Bruinders explained, unions opposed the government’s proposed cost cutting measures, which would have seen up to 20 000 employees exit the public servi ce by the end of March this year.

Judgment was reserved.