... Plan B already in place

achieve anything. He said their argument was that CoLA was not a salary increment, but an adjustment which was meant to cushion their salaries based on inflation rate, which could be a result of an increase of prices for goods and services.

“In fact, CoLA is a strategy to keep workers where they were the previous year and this why government wants it to be at the top of the agenda,” said the SNAT SG. Again, he urged their members to avoid being lured to accept CoLA because of back pay, which is widely referred to as ‘dvuladvula’ because they only enjoy it for one month and suffer for the rest of the year as reality struck.

Regarding the issue of the salary review, the unionist said the problem was that government maintained its stance that this year it would only engage a consultant, give it terms of reference, but would not implement the recommendations.

Thereafter, he said as PSAs, they did not want this matter to be among the first in the agenda, ahead of allowances and 2016 salary review appeals. Dlamini said this was because they did not want their members’ salaries to be reviewed while the mistakes of 2016 had not been addressed.

AppeAls

The SG said the same goes for allowances. He said their argument was that some public sector workers tabled appeals after the 2004 salary reviews and government promised to address them, but it conducted the 2016 salary review while the concerns were pending.

“Now, some of the affected workers have retired, while others were about to retire and their grievances are still with government. We do not want such to happen again, thus we want the issue of allowances and 2016 salary review appeals to be addressed before another

From L are SNAT’s Nkosinathi Dlamini, NAPSAWU’s Dumisani Nkuna and SNAT’s Thulani Hlatshwako, who all made submissions.

salary review exercise is out,” the unionist said.

Thereafter, the members of PSAs in the branch told their leaders to stick to their proposed agenda for the 2022/23 negotiations and reject that for the

Mcarried

- Plan B to be used to apply pressure on government is already in place.

The members of PSAs from the Manzini branches agreed that the only way to pile pressure on government was to use their rights, which were protected by the law.

They said if government failed

GNT. However, they mentioned that when they get to the issue of CoLA, they should consider the actual distribution of money. pFor instance, they said if the budget for CoLA was E200 million, it should be divided by to adhere to their demands, they would stage a strike action and march to deliver petitions.

ConCern

However, they said the concern was that these days, members of State security organs usually block marches and at times, they supposedly brutalise them.

They said if they faced the the total number of (about 40 000).

They said this would make them share it equally and in the process, the salaries of the lowly paid civil servants would increase. civil servants

same challenge, they would explore other options they have, which include staging sit-ins and go-slows.

“We can also picket at our workplace and if even this move is blocked, we can just stay-away from work as the law allows us to do,” they said.

It is worth noting that some of the PSAs branches met yesterday and others were yet to meet.

Thereafter, the resolution from all the branches would be consolidated.