Public servants to embark on one day strike

Thousands of public servants will down tools to voice their anger at the government's unilateral implementation of a 3% wage hike.

Unions are demanding an increase of 10%.

The unions held a joint media briefing at the Public Service Coordinating Bargaining Council (PSCBC) on Thursday to outline their plans to mobilise workers across all nine provinces.

Unions have lamented what they believe is the government’s disregard and undermining of the bargaining process, especially after reneging on the final leg of the 2020 wage agreement.

Cosatu national spokesperson Sizwe Pamla says the trade union federation fully supports the public service workers' decision to embark on a day of action.

"The current economic trends have unleashed very harsh conditions for the workers, including public servants, and led to a precipitous decline in the social position of the working class. The public service trade unions are justified in waging a struggle in defense of their members.

“We reiterate our call on the South African government to sit down with unions at the PSCBC and engage in good faith to find an amicable solution to avoid labour instability in the public service. The consequences of a full-blown public service strike will be devastating for poor communities who are reliant on government for their services and for public servants who are drowning in debt supporting relatives, who have lost wages and jobs in an economy battling to emerge from a recession.

“It is depressingly sad that the austerity measures that are implemented by the government have mainly affected workers that are at the lower levels in the public service hierarchy," says Pamla.

The South African Communist Party (SACP) has also expressed its solidarity with public servants.

"The SACP has no interests separate and apart from the objective interests of the workers as a class. This is one of the reasons the SACP has for a while now been calling on the trade union movement to convene a joint consultative conference to discuss the conditions under which workers across the economy work and live, and to agree on a joint programme of action to turn the situation around,” says spokesperson Alex Mashilo.

“These conditions include restructuring measures that deepen economic exploitation and erode the hard-won gains of the workers in the economy, including through undermining collective bargaining, as well as the persistently high levels of mass unemployment, poverty, and inequality.”

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