Marchers want higher wages
THE Public Servants Association of South Africa (PSA) gave President Cyril Ramaphosa seven days to respond to its demands of a 6.5% wage increase after they rejected the 3% increase offered by government.
More than 2 000 PSA members in Kwazulu-natal marched from the King Dinuzulu Park in Durban to the City Hall yesterday.
The members sang Struggle songs, and one which said 3% was for social grants. Posters reading “Public servants are bleeding”, “Ramaphosa is a thug and a criminal” and “Stop the attack on collective bargaining” were displayed by members.
Among the bodies participating in the protest action were the Health and Other Services Personnel Trade Union of South Africa (Hospersa) and the Federation of Unions of South Africa (Fedusa)
PSA provincial manager Mlungisi Ndlovu said they rejected the 3% hike offered by the government.
Hospersa general secretary Waheed Hoosen said the employer was by extension undermining the welfare of its employees by refusing to grant a decent increase and improvements to employee benefits. He said the government was discounting the value of its employees.
Hoosen said: “The state as an
employer has continued its trend of negotiating in bad faith and arriving with unclean hands at the negotiating table. It is well known that after entering into a three-year deal with the unions, they reneged and refused to
implement the agreed-upon increases for 2020. Public servants have had no increase on their baseline earnings since then and their pensions have consequently been eroded.”
In a memorandum submitted to
Sibusiso Ngubane, the deputy director-general of the office of the premier, who signed it on behalf of Premier Nomusa Dube-ncube, the PSA stated that it was disappointed with the manner in which the president and his ministers conducted the 2022/23 public service wage negotiations. The demands are:
• A single-term agreement for 2022/23 be agreed upon as the employer has shown that it cannot be trusted with a multi-term agreement. The government reneged on implementing a negotiated three-year agreement in 2020. The government’s failure to implement decent salary increases for public servants is the result of years of unabated fraud and corruption, with the salary bill being made the scapegoat.
• A 10% salary increase across the board should be offered to employees. The increase must be on the baseline. Public servants have been crippled by inflation, increases in the cost of fuel, food transport as well as interest rate hikes. Despite this, they are expected to render services without receiving a pensionable salary increase for the past three years.
• Protection of the cash gratuity beyond March 31,2023.
Moreover, the PSA demanded that the unilateral implementation of salary increases be withdrawn, as it diminished the gains of democracy and undermines the purpose of the Labour Relations Act and of orderly collective bargaining.
After signing the memorandum, Ngubane promised that the premier’s office would make sure that it reached the hands of the president.