The Public Servants Association (PSA) will embark on a national strike on Thursday over government’s decision to unilaterally implement a 3% wage hike this month as the negotiation deadlocked.
The union has 235 000 members and warned that its planned strike would hit Home Affairs, the Department of Transport, and South Africa border controls in particular. This will be the PSA’s first strike since 2010.
The standoff between civil servants and the government has come to a head after Labour Minister Thulas Mxesi last week said he was unilaterally implementing a 3% wage increase for the state’s 1.3 million workers.
The PSA on Tuesday said that its members will embark on a strike that will affect the activities of government departments, especially home affairs and transport.
Unions have demanded an increase of 10%. Inflation in South Africa is currently at 7.5%.
“We have done all we could,” Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said in an interview in Pretoria.
“We have got no room to move at the moment, even in the medium-term budget policy statement the carry-through costs we have are only for the 3%.”
Government is unilaterally implementing a 3% wage increase this month, while the PSA is calling for a 6.5% wage increase.
Only the SA Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) has accepted government’s 3% wage offer, while Cosatu affiliates want a 10% increase.
Reuben Maleka, the PSA assistant general manager confirmed that the strike would take place on Thursday.
The PSA said if the strike is prolonged, it had a fund I place to pay striking members. However, some in government are expecting the strike to last only for a day.
Maleka said unions would also march to the National Treasury to register its umbrage with Godongwana setting an average of 3.1% increase.
Source: News24, IOL, Moneyweb, Business Tech, The Citizen, image from Twitter: @CapricornFM
