Civil servants plan mass action
PUBLIC:
By so doing, they said members of the public would turn against government and demand service delivery and the only way it could offer it, would be by addressing their concerns, mainly their welfare.
MANZINI
– A well-orchestrated mass action!
This is what civil servants want to respond with to government’s decision to implement 2016 salary review appeals report without their consent (collective agreement).
The civil servants, through their General Councils (GCs), have since instructed the leadership of the Public Sector Unions (PSUs) of Swaziland to plan for a mass action that will frustrate government’s service delivery machinery and by so doing, make emaSwati turn against the administration for allegedly neglecting their welfare.
This transpired during the PSUs GC meeting, which was held at the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) Centre yesterday, where the main item on the agenda was the implementation of the 20016 salary review appeals report, without a collective agreement.
In the meeting, which was chaired by National Public Service and Allied Workers Union (NAPSAWU) President Oscar Nkambule, the secretariat delivered a report on what transpired at the Joint Negotiation Forum (JNF) and how government allegedly breached the JNF constitution by implementing the appeals report without their knowledge.
They said the JNF constitution provided that at the end of a discussion, the parties would either sign a collective agreement (that would be if they agreed) or a deadlock – if they agreed to disagree.
In this case, they said nothing was signed, but government issued an Establishment Circular and implemented the report, which was supposed to be discussed further in meetings which were yet to be held.
attitUde
When reacting to this, the civil servants said if they allow government, in particular the Government Negotiations Team (GNT), which is chaired by the Principal Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Public Service, Sipho Tsabedze, to continue with the attitude of doing things that concerned them, outside the JNF, they would not get anything in the much-anticipated salary review.
They argued that this was not the first time for government to disregard the JNF, as it allegedly did with the matter of the upcoming salary review exercise. They said at the roundtable, it was agreed that the salary review exercise should start on April 1, 2023, but later on, government announced through the media that the exercise would begin on May 1, 2023.
Again, they said recently, the Minister of Finance, Neal Rijkenberg made a public statement when delivering his budget speech for the 2023/24 national budget – that for civil servants, government had budgeted for three per cent costof-living adjustment (CoLA) for the financial year that would start on April 1, 2023 and end on March 31, 2024.
They added that the minister did the same thing even when delivering his budget speech for the 2022/23 financial year. Their argument was that such issues were suppose to be discussed at the roundtable. “By so doing, government is showing us a middle finger,” they said.
Therefore, they said no one would fight the war for their collective bargaining right, but they should do it themselves. They admitted that the terrain for their struggle had changed, but they said this required them to also change and be workers that acted differently.
They made an example that in the 2016 salary review, government withheld the report and they escalated the matter by delivering petitions week in and out until the employer released it. “The mass action should have an agenda for survival,” said one of the PSUs GC members.
coLLaPSe
Therefore, they said they were the drivers of the country’s economy and they could collapse it by staying away from work during their mass action. By so doing, they said members of the public would turn against government and demand service delivery and the only way it could offer it, would be by addressing their (civil servants) concerns, mainly their welfare.
“Let us not worry about collapsing the economy, we will build it again once the employer have listed our welfare and rights in its priorities,” said one of the PSUs GC members.
After that, they said while they planned on rolling out the mass action, the PSUs GC members should deliver petitions to government, mainly the Ministry of Public Service. On the same note, they said in a bid to get the numbers they needed in order to have a successful mass action, branch leaders from the four unions under the banner of the PSUs, should have joint meetings and activities at grassroots level.
It was agreed that the leadership of the PSUs should discuss the issue of delivering petitions to government and set dates. They also agreed that next Wednesday, the unions should launch a programme called; ‘Wednesday Pickets’ – where they would meet and picket at branch level in areas of their choice across the country.
“The Wednesday Pickets programme will be a mobilisation strategy and build-up to the roll out of the mass action, thus it will run until the main event is launched,” they said.
They argued that the employ
Plan to start picketing every Wednesday at various locations