Tough pay talks are looming for government

SA’s 1.3-million government workers demanding a 12% pay hike say they are preparing for a long round of talks from Tuesday after the state, grappling with a R700bn-plus public sector wage bill, offered unions a 3% rise recently.

Other demands for 2025/26 by public servants, including teachers, nurses and police, are for a R2,500 housing allowance increment across the board, a nearly twofold rise in the danger allowance to R1,000, a performance bonus, bursary schemes for dependants of employees and permanent employment for education/teacher assistants, community health workers and reservists.

Consumer inflation eased for a third month running to 4.4% in August from 4.6% in July.

The pay demands have been described as the toughest test yet for the new minister of public service & administration, Inkosi Mzamo Buthelezi.

Contacted for comment on Monday, Buthelezi said parties would meet at the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council (PSCBC) from Tuesday. He would not comment on his department’s 3% offer.

“Such discussions are very sensitive. We want to guard the integrity of the process. But when a deal is reached, it will be communicated publicly,” said Buthelezi.

Public Servants Association GM Reuben Maleka representing more than 245,000 government workers, said: “The employer is offering us 3%. We foresee a long negotiation process ahead. Marathon talks will begin from Tuesday where there will be exchanges of response along the lines of what has been offered and where we are.”

The chief negotiator for Cosatu’s public sector unions, Simon Hlungwani, could not be reached immediately for comment.

The talks for the 2025/26 year come after public servants got a 4.7% pay rise on April 1, in line with a wage deal signed by the government and four unions at the PSCBC in Pretoria in March 2023. It excludes senior management. The two-year pay deal translated into public servants getting a pay rise of 7.5% in 2023/24 and projected consumer price inflation for 2024/25.

In the 2024 Budget Review, the government pencilled in a total wage bill of just more than R750bn for 2025/26, about 4.5% higher than the previous year’s.

In his budget speech in February, finance minister Enoch Godongwana said the government was exploring other measures to be tabled in the bargaining council “as part of a broader discussion on containing wage bill growth”.

mkentanel@businesslive.co.za