Labour Wrap: Wages, policies and the public sector

Cape Town - Public sector workers are not overpaid, greedy and concerned only with their own welfare, says Terry Bell in his latest Labour Wrap. Yet, every year when wage negotiations start and the unions table their initial pay demand - 15% in this case - these accusations are levelled at them.

But Bell points out that the lowest-paid state employees earn no more than the generally agreed “living wage” minimum of R4 500 a month. A 15% increase would mean a jump, at most, to R5 175 a month. However, 15% is merely the opening gambit in the wage talks game and nobody expects this to be agreed.

He also points out that two of the biggest public sector unions, the PSA and the National Education Health and Allied Workers Union, proposed a sliding scale in the pre-talks unions caucus, suggesting giving the lowest-paid something like 15% (perhaps even more) and then the same equivalent in cash to everyone else.

What this means is that a worker on, say, R4 500 a month would receive a R675 pay rise. Someone earning R30 000 a month would receive the same amount - R675 or little more than 2%.

This would help close the already yawning wage gap. But the proposal was defeated in the labour caucus because higher paid workers wanted to ensure that their incomes also remained at least in line with inflation.

Aside from wage talks and negotiations about working conditions, Bell says that unions and their federations have frequently put forward alternative policies that would benefit all. But not since 1996 has the labour movement tabled any comprehensive macro-economic programme.