Inside Labour: Don't blame workers for poor management

Public sector D-Day is Monday

DON’T blame workers for poor management. And feel some sympathy for any competent managers, whether in a large school, a government department, or parastatal who often have to deal with a legacy of maladministration, all too often accompanied by levels of corruption.

This is particularly pertinent as we wait for Monday, which will be D (for decision) Day for the current public sector wage and conditions negotiations. It is then that government is scheduled to table a probable final offer to the unions.  This has taken more than seven months, including a deadlock and a process of conciliation.

The primary blame for this and other lengthy delays in public sector pay talks, rests with the government.  In 2012, for example, the talks dragged on for 11 months;  the current negotiations started back in September last year.

The reason? — as an employer, the government is committed, by law and international convention, to collective bargaining. However, in setting a national Budget, the government predetermines, without negotiation, the extent of the benefits to be granted to public service workers.

This contradiction led, amid considerable acrimony, to Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, as public services minister in 2001, imposing a pay deal on the unions. While such a move is unlikely this year, it remains a possibility.

On table since 2007

However, a settlement is more likely on Monday, especially if the state proposal amounts to a 7% improvement, taking account of overall benefits. But even if a deal is struck, there will still be a number of outstanding issues, some of which have been “on the table” since 2007.

One of these is the union demand to close the wage and welfare gap by reducing the number of grades. This gap is not as great as in the private sector, but is still considerable. Wages and conditions of many qualified teachers or nurses, for example, lag sorely behind those of individuals who form the upper echelons of the bureaucratic elite.  

While newspaper headlines scream about overpaid civil servants “sucking SA dry”, the annual pay of a director general is 14 times that of an auxilliary nurse with decades of experience.  A nurse at this level, even after 20 years or more can have a take-home package of less than R120 000 a year compared to the the R1.5m in average pay for a director-general (D-G).

At provincial and national level, there is a small army of chief directors, along with D-Gs and deputy D-Gs whose pay ranges from just short of R1m to R1.7m a year. And while it is true that more than half of the country’s civil servants, especially in the education and medical sectors, earn more than R15 000 a month (R180 000 a year) these are almost all people with relatively high educational qualifications and skills.  

Cashing in pensions

So it is little wonder, given their pay and conditions, that numbers continue to leave the professions or to live and work abroad. Teacher unions also point out that increasing numbers of their members are not only leaving the profession but, faced with financial problems, especially in terms of housing, are cashing in their pensions.  

These are workers who are in the invidious position of earning too much to qualify for state assisted housing, but too little to obtain a bond to buy a house.  The same applies to nurses and to many of the perhaps 40% and more of state employees who earn less than R15 000 a month.

At the lower end of the scale are those workers, including long-serving auxilliary nursing staff, whose income is less than R10 000 a month. The unions complain that their “previous learning”, sometimes over decades of service, is not taken into account.

If and when a deal is finally struck, these issues will continue to simmer in the background. One result will be that individuals with marketable skills will continue to deplete state medical and education sectors as they leave or go to work abroad. And the primary responsibility, again, rests with the employer, not the workers.

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* Terry Bell is a political, economic and labour analyst. Views expressed are his own. Follow him on twitter @telbelsa.