S.A Public Workers Threaten Strike Action


Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit

Jun 13, 1999 by labornews@igc.org


PUBLIC SERVICE THREATENS MASS ACTION OVER WAGE DISPUTE JOHANNESBURG

June 11 1999 Sapa

Labour unions representing about 1,2 million public servants on 
Friday threatened to embark on industrial action after three months 
of wage talks with the State ended in deadlock.

Unions affiliated to the Congress of South African Trade Unions - the 
National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union, the SA 
Democratic Teachers Union and the Police and Prisons Civil Rights 
Union - met in Johannesburg on Friday night.

After the meeting, SADTU general secretary Thulas Nxesi said the 
unions had voted to take the matter to their members who would decide 
whether to embark on mass action.

Union negotiators told Sapa that the State had refused to better its 
offer of a five percent pay increase since talks started in February, 
despite attempts to mediate through the Commission for Conciliation, 
Mediation and Arbitration.

The State argued that it only had R3 billion available for pay rises.

The unions argue that the State does have money, and that it is 
attempting to stall the process.

On April 29, all public service unions, with the exception of the SA 
Police Union and the Domestic Nursing Organisation of SA, declared a 
dispute with the employer.

Nxesi said the unions had no other option as the State had refused to 
budge on its initial offer of 5,7 percent, despite an agreement by 
the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining council - representing 
the unions - to drop its demand from 15 percent to 10 percent.

"We can no longer negotiate with the state, we have moved out of the 
bargaining chamber," he said.

The unions are demanding salary increases above the inflation rate 
and a moratorium on retrenchments.

They are also calling for the closure of the apartheid wage gap 
between the lowest and highest paid workers in public service, and a 
comprehensive remuneration system without down-grading the existing 
conditions of service.

source: gopher://gopher.anc.org.za/00/anc/newsbrief/1999/news0612

 
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