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S. Africa unions expected to sign public sector wage deal - sources Wendell Roelf, Reuters Africa, Cape Town 15 May 2015 Most of South Africa's public sector unions are expected to accept the government's 7 percent final wage hike offer on Friday, averting a potentially crippling strike, two sources said. About 1.3 million teachers, police officers and health workers were voting this week on the government's offer. "It is almost a certainty we will put pen to paper this afternoon," one source told Reuters. "The majority unions will sign and we expect a deal to be signed this afternoon," said a second source. Unions initially wanted 15 percent but lowered their demand to 10 percent as the government, under pressure to contain costs during a period of slack economic growth, dug in its heels. The state offered to adjust salaries in the second and third years to average South Africa's consumer price index (CPI) plus one percent. For the current year it proposes average projected CPI, forecast by Treasury at 4.8 percent, plus 2.2 adjustment. Besides the salary hike, the government has offered a medical aid increase of 28.5 percent and a housing allowance of 1,200 rand. Five years ago, just after South Africa hosted the Soccer World Cup, hundreds of thousands of public sector workers shut down schools and hospitals in a protracted and violent strike, the last major industrial action in the sector. (Reporting by Wendell Roelf; Editing by James Macharia) From: http://af.reuters.com/article/southAfricaNews/idAFL5N0Y625L20150515 -- -- 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.
