The public sector, which employs more than 1.2 million people, has often been the site of intractable negotiations. Some of these tangos have turned very unpleasant.
The opening shot in wage negotiations is usually just that. When the union sets down its demands, it usually puts forward unrealistic expectations, knowing that the employer will push back.
Similarly, the employer will table a counter-offer that it believes it can afford without driving the company into bankruptcy.
A tango ensues, often accompanied by subtle and unsubtle threats of industrial action. Sometimes the union does go all the way and shut down the company, with the employer retaliating by withholding pay for the days lost due to strike action.
Mostly, both sides try their best to avoid this worst-case scenario, as it hurts both sides and can cause long-term damage to the relationship.
In South Africa, strike action has often turned violent, resulting in costly destruction and even loss of life.
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The public sector, which employs more than 1.2 million people, has often been the site of intractable negotiations. Some of these tangos have turned very unpleasant.
In fact, public service strikes tend to be more prone to violence than those in other sectors. We have witnessed tragic scenes where workers in hospitals terrorise patients and non-striking healthcare workers.
Since at least 1999, when the unions realised that this was not going to be the sweetheart relationship they had hoped for when the ANC came to power, relations between labour and the state as an employer have been extremely tense.
This because the unions refuse to accept that the government’s wage bill has to keep within what the fiscus can afford and the government refuses to be bullied into breaking the bank.
This tone was set in the 1999 negotiations when then public service and administration minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi bluntly stated that the unions were not acting in the interests of the republic and its citizenry when they wanted to strike for a wage increase that was double the inflation rate at the time.
Fraser-Moleketi said:
The right of unions to withdraw labour is matched by an equal right of the employer to withdraw wages. A narrow form of trade unionism is not in the tradition of the South African working class or in their long-term interest.
In the populist Jacob Zuma years, fiscal responsibility didn’t count and government would grant unaffordable increases against the strict directives of Treasury.
Even as the economy tanked as a direct result of his own maladministration of the country, the man wanted to be Father Christmas and dished out the sweeties with gay abandon.
This was reversed when the Cyril Ramaphosa administration reverted to fiscal responsibility, leading to the fraying of relations once more.
This strained relationship is to be tested again in coming months, following the commencement of another tango this week.
The unions tabled their opening demands at the Public Service Coordinating Bargaining Council and, by the look of things, it is going to be a rough negotiating season.
Top of the list is a 12% wage increase for a term of one year, instead of the traditional three-year deal. This is miles higher than the current inflation rate of 4.6%.
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The unions justify this on the basis that the workers have not had a decent increase in five years and have, in fact, suffered a “cumulative shortfall of 9.3% in wage adjustments” during this time and their pay is “no longer aligned with the increasing cost of living”.
The shopping list includes a 12% rise in the medical aid subsidy; a danger allowance increase from R597 to R1 000, while the special danger allowance must go up to R1 400 from R894; the permanent employment of all contract workers; and a stiff increase in the housing allowance and pensions.
Blaming own goals such as government’s wasteful, fruitless and irregular expenditure for some of the state’s dire fiscal situation, the Public Servants Association said it and other unions were clear that “public servants should not have to pay the price for years of financial mismanagement”.
The union said in a statement:
Unions remain firm in rejecting government’s poverty plea and will not accept such justifications during these negotiations.
The reality, however, is that there simply is no money. The public sector unions have access to the same balance sheet that the minister of finance presents to South Africans in February every year and the same information that Treasury transparently shares with citizens throughout the year.
They know what ballooning the wage bill will do to the services that the state must provide citizens with, including themselves and their families. And they know that economic growth is anaemic, despite the positive second quarter figures.
Which then begs the questions: Why they are spoiling for a fight in this impossible environment?
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What do the leaders hope to achieve by raising the hopes of their members and thus setting the scene for hostile confrontations when the state does, correctly, plead poverty?
What is the point of creating an atmosphere that they know could lead to scenes like those which have accompanied public sector standoffs?
The next few months will tell whether the unions will rise above this “narrow form of trade unionism” and put the interests of the country, and particularly the working class, first.
