02 May 2021 - 00:00 By Sunday Times Editorial
This week public service & administration minister Senzo Mchunu called on South Africans to suggest proposals to resolve the deadlock in wage negotiations between the government and public service unions. Amid fiscal pressures and a moribund economy, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, talks between the government and unions representing its employees have been particularly difficult.
Even before the current round of talks, the parties were locked in a dispute over the government s reluctance to honour the last leg of a three-year wage deal. That dispute, which has been to the Labour Appeal Court, is now headed for the Constitutional Court.
Amcu wants ConCourt to ensure solidarity strikes are legally protected
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Johannesburg - The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) wants the Constituional Court to pronounce that solidarity strikes are legally protected in the country.
Formally referred to as secondary strikes, these are a form of industrial action by workers in support of a strike initiated by fellow union members in a separate company.
In Amcu’s case, protected secondary strikes would enable the union to bring the gold, platinum and coal mines to their knees if one employer failed to meet workers’ demands.
Amcu’s resolve to push for protection of solidarity emanated from a failed bid to achieve this in 2019.
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The Minister for the Public Service and Administration, Mr Senzo Mchunu, is calling for the citizens of South Africa to come forward with proposals which might assist in resolving the deadlock between Government and Organised Labour over the current public service wage negotiations. This comes after Government and Labour reached a deadlock on negotiations on Friday. The Minister held a media briefing last week Thursday, the 22nd of April 2021, and stated that these were the most difficult wage negotiations between the parties, which the country had ever faced and based this on a number of factors, including: the bad state of the country’s economy; COVID-19, the outcome in the Labour Appeal Court, with Organised Labour appealing the decision in the Constitutional Court, as well as the need for urgent reforms in the public service, to name a few.