Nehawu president Shingange calls public service 4.7% pay rise a ‘spit in the face’
Public service unions have threatened to down tools over the government’s implementation of the second and final leg of a wage deal reached at the bargaining council in 2023, warning that the coming wage talks would be difficult as workers seek to claw back losses of the past five years.
The department of public service & administration announced recently that public servants would receive a wage increase of 4.7% on April 1, in line with a wage deal signed by the employer and four unions at the public service co-ordinating bargaining council (PSCBC) in Pretoria in March 2023. Employees set to benefit do not include senior management.
The two-year pay deal translated into public servants getting a wage increase of 7.5% during 2023/24 and projected consumer price inflation (CPI) for 2024/25. Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, is expected to be 4.6% in 2024 after a reading of 4.9% in 2023, according to the SA Reserve Bank.
The two-year wage agreement was signed by the SA Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu), Public Servants’ Association (PSA), National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of SA (Naptosa), and the Health & Other Services Personnel Trade Union of SA (Hospersa).
The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) and three other unions, the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru), the Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA (Denosa) and the SA Policing Union (Sapu), did not sign the wage agreement in protest against the government’s decision to unilaterally implement a 3% wage increase for public servants in October 2022, among other grievances.
Thulani Ngwenya, president of Popcru, which represents 160,000 police, prison and traffic officers, said the union rejected the 4.7% wage increase, labelling it insufficient and warned that Popcru was prepared to “mobilise its members to march to Pretoria” to demand an above-inflation increase.
“This salary increment demonstrates government’s arrogance towards the public service. It is not enough to better the lives of the working class and public servants, or even to keep up with rising costs of living. As a result, the feedback we have received on this increase is very negative, especially after five years of wage freezes and below-inflation salary increases,” said Ngwenya. “We did not believe the lie that this was the best deal government could offer as employers, which is why we refused to sign the agreement. And it’s clear now that this has been one of the worst deals for public servants yet, matched only by the nonimplementation of the last leg of the 2018 wage agreement.”
He said that the 4.7% wage increase is an “insult” to Popcru members struggling to make ends meet, “yet are expected to serve on the front lines of the fight against crime”.
“Government has made it clear to workers that you are on your own. To those who told us that it was best to sign the twoyear agreement, we warn that now is the time to defend the working class and stand with workers — nothing more, nothing less,” said Ngwenya.
Sapu national spokesperson Lesiba Thobakgale said: “We rejected the wage agreement when it was tabled. It being effected doesn’t mean we are accepting it. The workers were robbed when the government concluded that pay deal.
“We want the employer to do justice to public servants during the coming wage negotiations for 2025/26.”
Nehawu president Mike Shingange said the wage agreement was a “spit in the face of hardworking public servants”.
“The 2025/26 wage negotiations won’t be easy because workers want to claw back ... losses suffered over the past five years, since the reneging on the last leg of the wage deal signed in 2018,” said Shingange.
“With all the high cost of living in [the] country and [the] level of unemployment, it will take many years for public servants to catch up with the losses they have suffered since 2020.”
In his budget speech in February, finance minister Enoch Godongwana said R251bn would be used to fund salaries of public servants such as teachers, health workers and the police.
He said the government was exploring other measures, which would be tabled for discussion in the PSCBC “as part of a broader discussion on containing wage bill growth”.
On the whole, the salaries of public service workers were projected to rise to just more than R822bn by 2027, from R721bn in 2024.