Gruelling duels ahead
Public service & administration minister Senzo Mchunu wants wage ‘prudence’ to apply across the government — implying that his tough stance over increases for public servants, who have been offered 0% this year, will be mirrored in hard bargaining with un
ý Wage talks between the state and its employees will yield no victors this year as fiscal constraints culminate in a potentially brutal showdown in crucial entities such as Eskom.
Negotiations between the government (and state-owned entities) and various unions are not limited to acrimonious talks at the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council. Haggling between Eskom, Transnet and at least five unions is also under way.
Public service & administration minister Senzo Mchunu earlier this month took the novel step of inviting citizens to help break the inevitable deadlock after tabling a 0% pay increase. Unions affected include the SA Democratic Teachers Union, the National Education, Health & Allied Workers’ Union and the Public Servants Association. An independent facilitator has been brought in to mediate.
The state’s coffers are bare and President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration is on a desperate drive to rein in the ballooning public sector wage bill and pull utilities such as Eskom out of intensive care. Public sector remuneration in SA, a middle-income country, is among the highest in the world, as the graph on this page shows.
Mchunu tells the FM that wage prudence will apply across the government, implying that the hard line over increases will be mirrored in state entities.
Talks between Transnet, the United National Transport Union and the SA Transport & Allied Workers Union deadlocked two weeks ago, after the state’s logistics giant opened with a 0% offer and a proposal to curb benefits. It moved slightly to a 3% nonpensionable allowance after labour balked, but refused to guarantee no retrenchments.
Tempers flared again and labour threatened to take to the streets, culminating in a deadlock with parties submitting to a process of conciliation — one step closer to industrial action.
Talks at Transnet are set to resume this month.
Last week, bargaining between Eskom and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) and Solidarity was temporarily suspended at the unions’ request.
NUM and Numsa, long at loggerheads over organising workers at Eskom, have formed an interesting alliance at the power utility this time around. Before Numsa’s expulsion from Cosatu, it had clashed with NUM (which traditionally organised Eskom workers) over members it refused to “hand over”. After Numsa’s expulsion, however, it expanded its organisational scope and has since pushed ahead with representing Eskom employees.
NUM’s leadership has changed after the death of general secretary David Sipunzi late last year, leaving his deputy, William Mabapa, in the hot seat. Mabapa was among the NUM leaders who were sympathetic to and campaigned in favour of both Numsa and former Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, ahead of their expulsion from the labour federation.
The FM understands NUM and Numsa in effect back each other in wage talks and have adopted a similar stance on key issues facing the energy sector, including wages, conditions and renewable energy.
Talks are also likely to take on a particularly political flavour due to Numsa’s political ambitions via its ideological vehicle, the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party, and also its proximity to the ANC’s radical economic transformation (RET) faction through the CEO of its investment company, Khandani Msibi.
The RET faction is aligned to former president Jacob Zuma and suspended ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule. It is also linked to a group at the centre of alleged corruption at Eskom, as tabled in evidence before the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture.
But according to sources in the government, this time around ministers will be more circumspect before being tempted to politicise wage talks. Indications are that the matter will be left to the board and Eskom management.
This is in stark contrast to the last round of talks, where public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan was drawn into negotiations after Eskom tabled no wage increases for the financial year ahead and unions resisted. The 7% increase which was eventually acceded to by Eskom hit its already disastrous balance sheet hard.
Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha says the unions are set to meet CEO André de Ruyter next week to discuss Eskom’s turnaround strategy and transformation — matters outside the scope of the bargaining forum.
Wage talks are set to resume on May 17.