Sober minds needed in wage talks

Wage negotiations are a tough exercise, especially in a state like SA where the antagonism between labour and capital has mirrored the conflict between the oppressed and oppressors.

It is understandable that even when it is the state on the other side of the table, the skills honed fighting employers whose aims were solely to secure maximum profit, would be brought to bear even if the employer is not an inherently hostile party.

While it is true that the estimated tax revenue for 2022/23 is expected to be R83,5bn higher than in the previous year, the needs of the state have also grown exponentially. It still has to manage ever competing needs on an ever increasing social budget and state-owned entities that need bailing out.

Public service workers cannot afford to identify themselves outside of the SA reality of high unemployment and poverty.

The state is notoriously wasteful and bad at managing the public purse. Year after year, the auditorgeneral’s office flags billions of rand unaccounted for or misused.

It is this experience that makes workers refuse to carry the can for the state’s inability or reluctance to manage its finances better. Public service workers argue that they too are affected by the high cost of living and unemployment because they are now required to carry the load for unemployed relatives.

That said, public service workers remain one of the few sectors in the economy where there is relative job security.

To acknowledge that the state needs to be prudent in its use of public money does not itself make the demand for higher wages reasonable. These are not mutually exclusive exercises.

Public service workers will, like the rest of taxpayers, eventually pay for the state’s money decisions. Even if they get the salaries they demand, this will come at the cost of something else the state needs to pay for, like education, health, social services and policing. Higher wages could come at the cost of services to their own relatives who depend entirely on the state for their wellbeing.

That is why everyone around the table must negotiate with the appreciation that the historical employer-employee tensions notwithstanding, this time everyone is on the same side.