Public sector unions are demanding a 10% increase across the board in negotiations with government. Ebrahim Harvey explains why he believes the demand is justifiable.
I'm certain, for several sound reasons, that this year's public sector wage negotiations will be the toughest and most combative and volatile we've ever seen.
The main reason is that the relevant unions are still smarting from the government's reneging on the 2018 wage settlement. This resulted in an acrimonious legal battle last year, in which the unions finally lost on spurious grounds in the Constitutional Court, to which they referred the matter after the Labour Court upheld the decision by the government. The unions are still smarting from those unjustifiable defeats.
Why unjustifiable? For the first time ever, a wage settlement at the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council (PSCBC) between the public sector unions and the government in 2018 was reneged on by the latter in 2021, the last year of that three-year wage agreement. Not only was this a violation of the letter and spirit of that settlement (and I still believe it was unlawful, despite the fact that the unions lost at the Labour Court late last year), but it happened at the worst possible time, given the devastating impact of the outbreak of the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic on workers and their families.
But this matter must be placed in perspective.
Worst time for workers in public sector
By the time Covid-19 began in March 2020, the black working-class majority was already suffering severely from the worst economic crisis we've ever had. What Covid-19 did was considerably worsen the already unprecedented crisis in every respect. Race, class and gender contradictions and inequalities exploded like never before. The refusal by the government to fully honour the 2018 agreement came at the worse possible time for workers in the broad public sector.
However, what was the worst aspect of the impasse on wages was the state's explanation about why it could not implement the last leg of that three-year wage deal: the devastating impact the Covid-19 pandemic had on its finances. While there is much truth to that argument, the effects of that same pandemic on workers and their families were incomparably worse, especially for public sector workers at the bottom end, particularly black employees in hospitals, schools, security and so on.
READ | Carol Paton: State of the unions - Ruptures between labour and ANC getting harder to heal
It is against that acrimonious background that in the opening round of negotiations last week, unions in the public sector, representing around 1.3 million employees, demanded a 10% wage increase across the board. There can be no doubt whatsoever that such a well-above inflation rate demand is motivated by last year's wage reneging amid the devastating consequences this had on workers and their families.
In other words, precisely because of the deep and painful disappointment of 2021, unions decided to start off with a high wage demand to compensate for the fact that they had no wage increase last year, despite the soaring and devastating cost of living increases across the board over the past few years, especially following the effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February. The generalised price increases this year have seen the inflation rate rise to its present roughly 5.8%.
But there can be no doubt whatsoever that given the effects of all these factors combined, the 10% wage demand is justified. In this regard, Reuben Maleka, a leader of the Public Servants Association, which represents more than 230 000 employees, retorted: "In fact, we are very economical to even be demanding 10%."
Justifable wage demand
Indeed, I think even a 12% wage demand would have been justified, especially when you think of the challenging and stressful conditions workers in the public sector, especially nurses and teachers, have faced during the Covid-19 pandemic. Almost 2 000 nurses and 2 000 teachers also died as a result of the pandemic.
It was the members and leaders of public-sector unions in the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), especially the National, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) because they are in a ruling alliance with the ANC, who were most painfully disappointed with government's reneging last year on the 2018 wage agreement. Their justifiable condemnation of this decision was arguably the lowest point in this alliance since 1994.
READ | Ebrahim Harvey: Ramaphosa's hostile Workers' day reception - What it means for the ANC
But it also taught those workers a painful lesson: they have paid a high price for giving their consistent and loyal support to a neoliberal ANC government since 1994 and got little in return, and without which it would probably not have survived. Judging by what workers who disrupted President Cyril Ramaphosa's speech during Cosatu's May Day event in Rustenburg earlier this month had to say about the painful reneging of the 2018 public sector wage deal, there must be no doubt that there was a huge groundswell of firm opposition to that decision.
However, what has imparted a particularly difficult element to the public sector wage negotiations is the daunting fact that the finance minister, Enoch Godongwana, has firmly indicated his determination to restrain the public sector wage bill since he took office in 2021. What complicated the matter further is that after the government reneged on the agreement last year, it took a firm decision that any future deals by the parties at the PSCBC must be ratified by Treasury, without which it will have no force.
Deadlock on the cards
What that decision has done is to indicate in advance that with tight financial constraints, especially following the impacts of the devastating Covid-19 and recently the KwaZulu-Natal floods, it is a foregone conclusion that there will most probably be a deadlock in wage negotiations this year. This is inevitable given the justifiable determination by the unions to secure a wage increase which legitimately takes into account that they not only had no such increase last year but had to bear the brunt of it with the resultant increase in the cost of living and the associated hardships.
READ | Mbhazima Shilowa: May Day rally - Workers' message to Cosatu was loud and clear, but did it hear it?
But there is something sinister about this situation that the ANC government must take into account in these negotiations: the devastating financial impact of the wanton corruption the commission of inquiry into state capture, chaired by Judge Raymond Zondo, has unearthed over the past few years. As Zondo so precisely stated: "The ANC government should be ashamed of what happened under its watch." But not only that. Many ANC leaders were themselves culprits in such corruption, for which the state must ultimately take responsibility, including for the financial losses the public purse suffered.
There must be no doubt at all that such a mountain of corruption in the state and the devastating financial impact it had on South Africa, including the refusal to honour last year's leg of the three-year 2018 wage settlement, must be considered in the final wage settlement reached this year at the PSCBC. I firmly believe that against such a background the unions are fully justified to demand a 10% wage increase.
- Ebrahim Harvey is an independent political writer, analyst and author of 'The Great Pretenders: Race and Class under ANC Rule', published in May 2021 by Jacana.
To receive Opinions Weekly, sign up for the newsletter here.
*Want to respond to the columnist? Send your letter or article to opinions@news24.comwith your name and town or province. You are welcome to also send a profile picture. We encourage a diversity of voices and views in our readers' submissions and reserve the right not to publish any and all submissions received.
Disclaimer: News24 encourages freedom of speech and the expression of diverse views. The views of columnists published on News24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of News24.
