There was nothing wrong with municipal workers demanding an 18% wage increase as long as productivity increased by the same margins or more, Frans Cronje, deputy CEO of the South African Institute of Race Relations, said on Monday.
“The problem comes in when wage increases are not matched by improvements in labour productivity and this would appear to be the case in many parts of the public service,” he said.
Cronje’s statement followed assertions by the South African Local Government Association (Salga) that their 6.08% wage offer was many times better than the minimum wage required by workers from the world’s second largest platinum producer, Impala Platinum.
Again, this 18% demand appeared to be hard to justify in view of the fact that the municipal workers received better payments compared with state employees and, in some cases, employees in the private sector.
The minimum wage of a municipal worker in non-metropolitan areas is R4,339 per month and when you add 6.08% that becomes R4,600, and those in metropolitan areas is R6,700.
Sizwe Pamla, spokesperson of the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu), a union representing the majority of state employees at the lowest paid categories, said most cleaners and security guards employed in the public services were paid about R3,700 a month.
“It is amazing because we all get paid from the same coffer, which is the national Treasury.
“If you look at their (municipal workers) increases, they have been getting double digits. I will support any argument that public servants are poorly paid,” he said.
Salga’s executive director of labour relations, Mzwanele Yawa, said the parties to the bargaining council concluded a collective agreement on salaries and wages in 2009 and this provided for a multi-year agreement that commenced with the implementation of a 13% salary increase in 2009, 8.48% in 2010 and 6.08% for this year.
He said Salga felt that the demand for 18% was unreasonable and would have an adverse impact on the budgets of about 262 member municipalities.
If not matched by increases in productivity, Cronje said, such increases would make it progressively more difficult for the government to fund its other responsibilities and it would have to funnel money away from areas such as education, healthcare, security, infrastructure development and service delivery to fund its wage bill.
About 145,000 workers, mostly affiliated to the South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu), downed tools yesterday demanding an 18% wage increase across the board. They argue that the increase is necessary to meet the economic hardships that municipal workers suffered and that the 6.08% offer was completely unacceptable, given current price increases.
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