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Johannesburg - The government must ensure there is a moratorium on salary increases in the upper level of government, the SA Communist Party said on Sunday.
"The wage gap in the public sector between the highest paid and the lowest paid is 91 to one", secretary general Blade Nzimande said, calling on the government and public sector union to resolve the indefinite strike speedily.
"The longer it is prolonged, the more everyone suffers and the danger of unbridgeable positions becoming entrenched increases."
He condemned acts of violence accompanying the strike - now on the brink of its third week.
Nzimande said threats of physical attacks against students and teachers; as well as neglecting patients at intensive care units were all acts of punishment against the poor in general.
"These forms of gross indiscipline detract from the legitimacy of the struggle and divides rather than unites the working class," he said.
He said most of the formal sector workers, including public service workers in key area like education, health care and policing, do not qualify for government subsidised RDP housing, while they could not afford private bank mortgages.
"Increases in the housing allowance paid to public service workers might help alleviate some of their problems," he said.
About 1.3 million public service workers embarked on an indefinite strike in a bid to push government to concede to their 8.6% salary hike and R1 000 housing per month allowance demand.
The government offered a seven percent pay hike and a R700 housing allowance.
Nzimande said whatever the outcomes of the strike, the ANC led alliance partners needed to sit down and analyse the reasons for the strike. He said one of the issues to be discussed was the way wage bargaining was done in the public sector.
"Public sector wage bargaining should precede the passing of the budget, and we need to find means for doing this," he said.
He said another area that needed urgent attention was an effective definition and a consensus upon what constituted essential services.
