‘Pay up or face anarchy’

ONE of the country’s biggest trade unions has warned that the government’s failure to increase its employees’ salaries could cause anarchy in South Africa.

William Mokhari SC, representing the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu), which is Cosatu’s largest affiliate, issued the warning during arguments at the Labour Appeal Court yesterday.

Nehawu is opposed to the government’s counter application to have the 2018 wage agreement declared unenforceable, unaffordable, offending public policy, unlawful and in contravention of 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.

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

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

However, Mokhari said the impossibility did not mean that the government must not honour agreements.

Jeremy Gauntlett SC, arguing for the National Treasury, maintained that the unions had made their bed and must now lie 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 was invalid as the agreement did not comply with the Public Service Regulations, which regulate the mandating and management of negotiations as well as matters with fiscal implications during the collective bargaining process.

He likened the unions’ demands to taking 60% of the country’s resources to take care of 2% of the population. He said there was an attempt to stop the current litigation with an offer of R13.5bn but unions rejected it.

He described the coronavirus pandemic as a particularly difficult and dark time and said the government was justified in launching its counter application.

Gauntlett said that the Department of Public Service and Administration was now defending fecklessness.

Tim Bruinders SC, who was representing Public Service and Administration, said the government had a fiscal limit of R110bn 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 leave the public service by the end of March this year.

Judgment was reserved.