Address by COSATU General Secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, to the public sector unions march 16 September - 2004

 

Zwelinzima Vavi COSATU General Secretary speaking notes to the public sector unions march in Pretoria

The issues are:

· Longstanding underpayment and understaffing in the public service
· The employers’ insistence on inflation-level increases only
· The substantial increase in the overall budget that should permit a larger salary improvement

1 Underpayment and understaffing in the public service

The public service is not made up of bureaucrats, but rather consists primarily of people who directly serve our communities. Three quarters of public servants are educators, health workers, police or corrections officers. These are skilled workers who serve our people at considerable cost to themselves – in terms of heavy workloads, long hours, and often physical dangers.

Teachers must have at least a three-year degree to enter the profession. Yet their pay starts at R7000 a month, and many take home only R3500 or so. Moreover, because the employer did nothing to introduce career paths until last year, educators effectively had no way to move up the salary scale unless they became principals. We estimate the cost of this freeze on educators’ career paths at over R2 billion.

Officially, there are now around 35 to 40 learners for every educator. But that includes teachers who have become principles as well as those who teach subjects with limited participation. As a result, in many classrooms there are still forty to fifty learners. Moreover, the School Register of Needs shows that many teachers must still work in classrooms that are falling apart, without electricity or phones, and where almost one in twenty schools still has no running water.

Nurses must have a two or three year degree. Their pay starts at around R5000 a month – about the same as a skilled factory worker. Yet because of understaffing and the loss of personnel from the public sector in particular, we have seen growing workloads. Nurses must work long shifts, travel around townships in the dead of night, and work through weekends and holidays.

In 2000, the unions agreed to review nurses’ career paths. Again, the employer has dragged its heels. As a result, nurses now do not have any way to earn a promotion. They are stuck on the same salary level until the employer starts to work seriously with labour to define promotion opportunities. In these circumstances, only the most dedicated will stay in the public sector – and the employer rewards them by offering only inflation-level increases.

The police and corrections officers risk their lives every day to protect the public. South Africa has one of the highest rates of murder for the police. Yet police officers’ pay starts at about R4000 a month. Like nurses, their career paths were eliminated in 2000, and have not yet been replaced. And they too must work long shifts at strange hours. Moreover, they must continuously face the social problems left by apartheid, poverty and unemployment – alcoholism, family abuse and other violent crimes.

We can contrast the pay earned by public servants with that earned by our leaders. The senior management service got an increase of 6,5% in January. That means that directors general, who run departments, enjoyed a pay increase of around R4000 a month – enough to pay the entire salary of a level one worker twice over.

2 The basic pay increase

The main debate is over a matter of principle: Given a notch, should the overall wage scale go up at all over inflation? The employer wants to grant only a half percent increase over inflation this year, and then expects to freeze public servants’ pay for the next two years.

Labour has always argued that the payscale should rise more than inflation every year, because productivity climbs steadily. The increase in productivity is harder to measure in the public service than in the private sector, but is clearly there. For one thing, since 1994 public-service employment has fallen while total spending has increased.

In addition, there is still no career pathing for most public servants. Therefore they will only get an annual notch, which means a real increase of 1% above inflation at most. That is a very small real increase, especially given productivity gains. (NUMSA just won a 7,5% increase plus improved benefits.)

The employer argues that it had to give a higher increase to senior managers because it could not otherwise fill high-level positions. But that ignores the vacancies for lower-level professionals – currently there is a 30% shortage of nurses at Chris Hani-Baragwaneth. Good educators, nurses and even police officers are leaving for England. This problem in part reflects low starting pay, which is where a bigger annual increase would help.

The employer argues that ensuring more equitable benefits and improved staffing will absorb the additional funds budgeted for personnel expenditure. But how long must public servants pay to overcome inequalities and understaffing? It is one thing to ask for a once-off sacrifice, but the employer seems to expect public servants to pay forever for its past mistakes.

3 The budget

The national budget increased by around 10% in nominal terms this year. That means that the state must be able to find the funds for an addition percentage increase. The total nominal increase in the budget was 10%, or 5% above CPIX. In nominal terms, the increase was around R40 billion. Surely it is possible to find R1,3 billion for an additional percentage point for public servants.

Furthermore, the budget foresees an overall increase of 9% in personnel costs. Even if the housing improvement and the notch cost a total of around 1,7%, at the current proposal of 5,4% the state will only be increasing personnel costs by 7,1%. Certainly there is scope for further improvement in the wage offer above CPIX in base pay annually.

4 The negotiations process

Finally, the employer has not negotiated in good faith. Early on, it declared a dispute – usually the precursor to the use of power. Then it claims workers should not strike because negotiations are still underway!

The employer wants to compress wage negotiations into weeks or months. Yet every year it starts with an offer at or below inflation, and simultaneously tries to fast-track important transformatory measures. Then it wonders why negotiations drag for months.

Similarly, the employer wants a three-year agreement both to tie workers in to low increases and to make it easier to budget. But unions can’t afford to sign medium-term agreements that effectively mean a wage freeze in real terms.

The public service faces serious transformation challenges. Trying to short-circuit negotiations with artificial deadlines and miserly medium-term agreements doesn’t help. Rather, the employer must take into account the needs of workers and meet us half way.