Johannesburg
- A group of public servants has rejected the state's 5.3% pay offer, and now
plan to declare a dispute on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Independent Labour
Caucus (ILC) said.
"Public
servants are also subject to the devastating combined effects of inflation,
rising electricity bills, petrol price increases, and municipal service hikes
which severely erode their spendable income and poverty is, as a result,
becoming a growing reality for the average public servant in lower and middle
echelons," said ILC chairman Manie de Clercq.
The ILC is
a group of unions that represent over 40% of the public servants in the Public
Service Coordinating Bargaining Council. The Congress of SA Trade Unions
(Cosatu) represents about 56 percent and the remainder do not belong to unions.
De Clercq
said negotiations had deadlocked on May 20 when the state would not go higher
than a move of 0.1% on its initial offer. The inflation figure for March was
5.1%. Unions had lowered their demand to 10.5% from 11%. The ILC includes the
National Professional Teachers Organisation of SA, the National Public Service
Workers Union, the Professional Educators Union, and the SA Policing Union and
represents about 400 000 people, said De Clercq.
He told
Sapa that members saw the inflation rate - which was not far from the
government's offer - as a maintenance amount. But this did not take into
account increases that were way above inflation such as electricity and fuel
costs.
"We
need a real increase, we need real growth."
Other
aspects of the negotiations were a push for an increases in the medical
allowance and an increase in the housing allowance from the current R500 a
month to R1 650.
The dispute
would be filed with the bargaining council, which had the same powers as the
Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, and the ILC hoped that
the 30 days that then followed to give parties time to mediate the dispute,
would yield a resolution.
If that
failed, a strike notice would be filed and another seven days lapse. There
would also be days in between to poll members for their mandates on how to
proceed.
This meant
that if there was a strike, it would be unlikely to affect the World Cup.
"We as
the ILC never wanted to use the World Cup as a bargaining chip," said De
Clercq. A Cosatu spokesperson was not immediately available to comment on their
current position.
- Sapa