South Africa’s 800,000-plus public servants took to the streets nationwide on Tuesday after failing to reach an agreement over wage demands between the government and the three unions representing the workers.
The workers are from the Congress of South African Trade Unions, Federation of Unions of South Africa, and South African Federation of Trade Unions members in government employment who are staging what they call a “National Day of Action to demand higher wages.”
The unions said the planned daylong march was part of the ongoing demonstrations ahead of an indefinite strike if the government failed to improve its 3% wage offer.
Negotiations reached a deadlock after the government made what it called a final offer of 7.5% comprising – 3% pensionable and 4.5% non-pensionable funds, the unions said.
The unions rejected this, demanding a 10% increase in wages, instead.
They said they would deliver a memorandum of demands to the National Treasury during the National Day of Acton which is being held in the administrative capital of Pretoria and other cities in the country.
Acting Public Service and Administration Minister, Thulas Nxesi, has blamed the media and the unions in “a grand scale of misleading public service employees, and the public at large,” accusing government for offering only 3% when it had in fact tabled 7.5% to the workers.
“Our colleagues in organised labour, including the leadership, are aware of these facts. The misinformation and misrepresentation are rather mischievous, and are condemned.”
NM/jn/APA