NEHAWU special NEC statement on the non-implementation of salary increase for public servants
12 May 2020
The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union [NEHAWU] convened a Special National Executive Committee [NEC] meeting yesterday to discuss the outcomes of the conciliation that took place at the Public Service Coordinating Bargaining Council [PSCBC] on the implementation of PSCBC Resolution 1 of 2018 especially Clause 3.3.
According to the agreement, the government was supposed to pay an across the board adjustment to the cost of living by CPI plus 1% for salary level 1 – 7, CPI plus 0.5% for salary level 8 – 10 and CPI for salary level 11 -12. The national union declared a dispute on the 1st April 2020 after the employer reneged on implementing the last leg of the binding agreement signed in 2018. The matter was set down for conciliation which was convened from the 28th April 2020 to the 6th May 2020.
During conciliation government continued to propose that workers fund the last leg of the increment through money allocated for pay progression due to public servants and their capped leaves. This would mean that there will be no pay progression for the financial year 2020/21 for public service workers. Government requires R32 billion to fund the last leg of the agreement, however, currently they have R13 billions and R10 billions from what they claim to have comes from funds meant to fund workers’ pay progression. What this means is that government wants to only allocate only about R3 billion out of a commitment of R32 billion. For us, this represents a wage freeze and merely an exercise of reallocation within the same envelop.
As NEHAWU, we hold a strong view that government had no intention of honouring the agreement and they made their intentions clear when Treasury delivered the 2019/20 Budget. The Minister of Finance, Tito Mboweni, unilaterally proclaimed that he was going to reverse the 2018 agreement in relation to its last leg of 2020/21. Clearly, this intention or agenda was set out long before the economy went into a technical recession [which took place in the fourth quarter 2019 and first quarter 2020] and the outbreak of the Coronavirus epidemic.