Mchunu stands firm on 1.5% salary increase ahead of labour talks
Public Service and Administration Minister Senzo Mchunu says government will to stick to its guns during the upcoming wage negotiations.
Government and unions will meet again on Tuesday at the Public Service Coordinating Bargaining Council (PSCBC) to try find common ground amid tensions over salaries.
Mchunu says there’s an offer of a 1.5% increase on the table across the board.
“Unlike what I’ve seem somewhere else, this is not the same as pay progression that we all know about. This has a new element in that in has a pay progression but it’s in the baseline, it has an impact on what the public servant is going to get, it has an impact in terms of contribution to your pension and that it applies to all public servants.”
Mchunu warns government is unlikely to deviate from the fiscal framework.
“Where we will get the money after the agreement is something else, it’s something that we must look at ourselves and discuss and find a solution for it but it’s not budgeted for except the 1.5% which is budgeted for.
“There are limits everywhere, even in your house you tell whoever is going to the shop at the end of the month to buy groceries, you will not exceed a particular amount of money so we are operating within that but at the. Same time find accommodation to what labour are saying and be also to find a solutions,” he adds.
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Mchunu believes the offer is reasonable in the midst of a health crisis and widespread unemployment.
“In our view, where we sit this is a reasonable offer that we’ve been able to make from nowhere.
“We may not say this is all the unions were looking for but it would be extremely hard for us to say this is very little that we have offered amidst the difficulties we are talking about.
“I appreciate the difficulties and what I’m persuading the unions that are outside the chamber to consider going back and then I want to secondly make an appeal that we resolve these matters as a matter of urgency.”
Labour unions previously called for no less than an increase of 4%.
Previously, the acrimonious talks have yielded little more than threats of protest action.
