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Pretoria - The Independent Labour Caucus (ILC) must stop issuing statements to the media about the ongoing public sector wage negotiations, the department of public service and administration said on Tuesday.
"We call upon the ILC to desist from sensationalising the negotiations as this action has the potential to frustrate the finalisation of the negotiations process," said the department's deputy director general for labour relations and remuneration management Khumbula Ndaba.
The unions and the government had agreed not to speak to the media about wage negotiations, he said in a statement.
This came about after the ILC said in a statement that the government had made an informal offer of 6.8% and that progress in the negotiations was slow.
The ILC represents represent 10 unions and 460 000 union members in the public sector.
Ndaba the idea of the agreement on not talking to the media was to give negotiators in the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council the opportunity to deal with the issues before them in an environment "free of interference and emotions".
"The statement by the ILC not only detracts from this noble agreement but seeks to exonerate the ILC, thus creating an impression that the employer party is solely responsible for the delay in the finalisation of the negotiations process," he said.
Ndaba said the ILC's statement was surprising, because the government believed that the unions were consulting with their members on the offer.
He said the government was also concerned about the length of the negotiations, but that it had to be taken into consideration that the talks involved 1.4 million employees.
Earlier this week, the Federation of Unions of SA (Fedusa) called for negotiations to be handled speedily.
"Organised labour tabled their demands in February this year, however government only responded to demands at the end of March," Fedusa deputy secretary general Gretchen Humphries said at the time.
Despite an outside facilitator having been brought in, talks had been "slow and unproductive", she said.
The next scheduled negotiations take place on Friday.
"We call upon the ILC to desist from sensationalising the negotiations as this action has the potential to frustrate the finalisation of the negotiations process," said the department's deputy director general for labour relations and remuneration management Khumbula Ndaba.
The unions and the government had agreed not to speak to the media about wage negotiations, he said in a statement.
This came about after the ILC said in a statement that the government had made an informal offer of 6.8% and that progress in the negotiations was slow.
The ILC represents represent 10 unions and 460 000 union members in the public sector.
Ndaba the idea of the agreement on not talking to the media was to give negotiators in the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council the opportunity to deal with the issues before them in an environment "free of interference and emotions".
"The statement by the ILC not only detracts from this noble agreement but seeks to exonerate the ILC, thus creating an impression that the employer party is solely responsible for the delay in the finalisation of the negotiations process," he said.
Ndaba said the ILC's statement was surprising, because the government believed that the unions were consulting with their members on the offer.
He said the government was also concerned about the length of the negotiations, but that it had to be taken into consideration that the talks involved 1.4 million employees.
Earlier this week, the Federation of Unions of SA (Fedusa) called for negotiations to be handled speedily.
"Organised labour tabled their demands in February this year, however government only responded to demands at the end of March," Fedusa deputy secretary general Gretchen Humphries said at the time.
Despite an outside facilitator having been brought in, talks had been "slow and unproductive", she said.
The next scheduled negotiations take place on Friday.
