Johannesburg - Government employees will have to wait until next week Tuesday to find out if their unions have heeded their mandates and accepted a government wage increase offer.
It is expected that labour unions representing 1.3 million public servants at the Public Sector Coordinating Bargaining Council (PSCBC) will sign the new deal which had been discussed under mediation with government from last night until the early hours of Saturday morning.
Unions had demanded a 10 percent pay hike.
The talks were placed under conciliation after parties failed to reach an agreement independently after seven months of negotiations.
Unions had initially threatened to strike, but backed out after members rejected the option as they considered it too costly.
Workers flooded social media sites with queries yesterday and this morning, asking whether they were not getting an increase at all this year.
Unions had guaranteed their members that the negotiation process would be completed and a new deal, which negotiators Independent Media spoke to said was a three year agreement, giving workers seven percent hikes in the first year, and CPI plus 1 percent the other years.
They also secured 28.5 percent increase in medical aid contributions and a contested R1200 housing allowance limited to a single spouse if a married couple is employed in the public service.
And that seems to be the contentious issue as government wants to introduce reforms to the housing subsidy in line with the objectives of Government Employees Housing Scheme (GEHS).
The PSCBC’s Frikkie De Bruin took to twitter today to allay fears that the negotiations had collapsed. “It's a package(d) deal. We need to agree on all. But GEHS is at this point the sticky area,” he tweeted in reply to concerns raised.
Labour Bureau