Union ready for war with government on wage bill cuts

27 February 2020

As the nation geared up for the 2020-2021 Budget Speech at Parliament today by the Minister of Finance, Tito Mboweni. The National Union of Public Service and Allied Workers (NUPSAW) is blatantly disgusted by the Minister’s speech of being persistent to cutting the salaries of public servants. We will not engage with the government to negotiate this nonsense, as the salaries of the people are not negotiable especially at this time of the agreement.

The government is expecting the public servants to replenish the deficit in a killed economy, also done by the ANC governments looting corruption and mismanagement. The government entered into an agreement with public servants for a duration of 3 years and we therefore cannot be reviewing clause 3. 3 of PSCBC resolution 1 of 2018 at this stage regarding any attempt to tempering with the public purses.

NUPSAW rejects any proposals by the government to review the Public Service wage agreement at the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council (PSCBC) with labour and other stakeholders. The budget speech was just an insult to the public servants and the cutting will not fly, as this only serve to disadvantage the working class. The public servants will not absorb significant budget cuts to bailout zombie state-owned enterprises, which risks compromising service.

Is the ANC government fooling us?  With more funding for destructed SOEs, looting corruption, racism, failed education system and poor health care system. The Finance Minister has a lot of difficult decisions to make to save South African economy, now is the time for a dramatic cost cuts for the government and its bourgeoisie politicians. The government needs to act on footing out those politicians who are looting corruption, stealing and interfering in department systems than reducing the wage bill. 

Half of the citizens of South Africa are living below the upper poverty line, more than half of young people are unemployed and South Africa is in a crisis. ANC sweetheart unions have been the major obstacle in dealing with the overblown public sector wage bill and have been the reason the employer is now wanting to review the agreement.

We are living in a period of economic and literal darkness. South Africa faces a leadership crisis; the country is demising like many failed African States led by goals. This crisis has not only hit us on the national and provincial levels, we are feeling it on local government level too.

The 2020-2021 Budget Speech did not present a new direction for the public servants and therefore the Minister of Finance has declared war from the union. The ANC government wants to persuade us to accept neo-liberal debt trap and the present massive existing government debt and NUPSAW is ready to fight for the public servants and putting the workers first.

Issued by Kagiso Makoe, NUPSAW Media Officer, 27 February 2020