New Age2.png
Public service workers have no friend in the Treasury Bereng Soke, The New Age, Johannesburg, 24 April 2015 "Where wages are high, accordingly, we shall always find the workmen more active, diligent, and expeditious, than where they are low." This could easily have been the words of Sdumo Dlamini, the president of COSATU or even Innocent Mahlangu who may be toiling in one of the malfunctioning hospitals in the Free State or at one of our border-posts. The sane among us, with the definite exception of those who carry the mantle of neo-liberalism in South Africa, would readily agree with this. Ironically, these are the sentiments of economist Adam Smith, who even went further in his Wealth of Nations to call for "the liberal reward of labour". The ongoing public service wage negotiations have brought to the fore and focused the attention on the ongoing class offensive directed at the working class by the political leadership that is pandering to capital. The current selective austerity measures, which the Treasury is voluntarily implementing, represent the capture of the state. This has proved true in the theory by Karl Marx that the state is a product of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. So far the government has flatly refused to give workers their revised demand of 10% salary increase and a R1500 demand on housing allowance. They want to impose a 5,8% salary increase on workers and are only prepared to increase the housing allowance by a measly R200 from the previous figure of R900, to make it R1100. They also provocatively announced in the last Medium Term Budget Policy Statement statement that they will be cancelling all vacant posts in the public service; and will be privatising some "non-strategic" state assets. This ill-advised freezing of the personnel head count and the threat for the permanent withdrawal of funded vacancies comes on the back of existing massive vacancies, which put unbearable pressure on our members. According to recent data of the government relating to health: . 15% of positions for professional nurses are vacant . 14% of positions for enrolled nurses are vacant . 11% of positions for enrolled nurse assistants are vacant . 21% of positions for medical practitioners are vacant . 9% of positions for emergency medical services are vacant. The government wants to raise the funds it needs to balance its books on the back of low income for public servants. They failed to introduce tax measures on companies and the richest 10% of income groups - who have benefited the most before the 2009 recession, given the fact that we live in one of the most unequal societies on earth. Another fairy tale, which has been perpetuated by the Treasury, as a way of demonising the public servants and dividing the working class is that there is a huge public service wage bill because of our members' increases. This is a myth that they like to encourage but it's not true. The truth is that the largest slice of this wage bill goes to the ever - growing managerial and executive layer. For example, last year another department was created - the Department of Small Business Development. The Treasury has also messed up the workers by appropriating to itself the custodianship of policy determination on social security reforms from the relevant departments, the Department of Social Development and the Department of Labour, under the pretext that it was for financial modelling for retirement insurance reforms. This led to the derailment of the engagement on the establishment of a comprehensive social security system at Nedlac. The same has befallen the NHI, whose white paper has not been released since the Treasury appropriated its policy custodianship under the pretext of financial modelling. While all of this is happening, the private companies have found a gold mine in the public service. Last year, the government itself reported that about 5% of our infrastructure budget or between R25 - R30bn in every financial year, is lost to tender fraud and corruption. Again last year, auditor-general Kimi Makwetu reported that irregular state expenditure has skyrocketed from R26bn in 2012 to a staggering R62bn in 2014. The Independent Commission for the Remuneration of Public Office Bearers recently sent recommendations to President Jacob Zuma, suggesting that public office bearers earning more than R1m should be given a 5% increase and those earning less than R1m should receive 6%. The independence of the same commission is undermined by the fact that it is dominated by judges, who are in fact being asked to recommend their own salary increases. There has been no call for the rejection of this from political office bearers across the board. They have rigidly continued to stick to their policy of driving the budget deficit below 3%. This rigidity continues, despite the prevailing economic climate in which the gross domestic expenditure and household consumption remain at their lowest since the recession. There's no evidence of a counter-cyclical fiscal policy, as claimed by the Treasury. The Treasury is also stubbornly sticking to the reduction of non-interest spending as a percentage of GDP, with real spending only planned to grow by an annual average of 2.3% over the next three years. The dampening effect of this fiscal policy stance on economic growth does not inspire hope among the unemployed and our members, many of whom continue to bear the burden of supporting the unemployed relatives and extended family members. We want to warn the Treasury that, we will fight these austerity measures using all the armoury and tools in our arsenal. The government should also acknowledge that it is unsustainable to preside over a public workforce that is overworked, poorly paid and also a population that is hungry and destitute. . Bereng Soke is general secretary of NEHAWU, central executive committee member of COSATU and central committee member of the SACP From: http://tnaepaper.co.za/ -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
