Budget Speech 2020: Cosatu to ‘declare war’ at mention of wage review

The South African government is looking to get out of a 2018 wage agreement with public servants ahead of the Budget Speech 2020. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) says that should Finance Minister Tito Mboweni make mention of a “review” of the signed wage agreement, it will declare war. 

Mboweni is under pressure to decrease the Public Service Wage Bill that’s been a burden on government spending for many years. 

French global banking and insurance group BNP Paribas predicted a renewed effort to reduce the state’s massive public sector wage bill saying:

“The South African government currently spends more than R50 billion on payments to public servants, a figure which has more than tripled between 2006 and 2020.”

Why Cosatu says it shouldn’t be mentioned in the Budget Speech 2020 

Cosatu says it denounces the attempt by the government to review and adjust public service salaries over three years and any mention of it during the Budget Speech 2020 would be dentrimental.

“A collective agreement on the Improvement of Conditions of Service for Public Service was concluded in 2018,” it said. 

This review will have seen the non-implementation of a signed agreement — meaning that the hard-working public servants will not see any salary increase for the year 2020/2021. 

“This irresponsible and blatant act of provocation will seriously destabilise the public service and we warn the government to abandon this idea and give workers what is due to them on 1 April 2020,” it said. 

“If the government attempts to smuggle this review in tomorrow’s budget speech, the CEC will regard it as a declaration of war and there will be parting of ways with government going forward,” it added.  

Consequences of a cut in the public sector wage bill 

Cosatu said the mention of cutbacks during the Budget Speech 2020 would no doubt negatively impact poverty and unemployment and deemed it a reckless approach.

“The National Treasury’s fixation with cutbacks in public service in the context of continued job shedding in the private sector has severe implications for poverty and unemployment. This reckless approach will cause serious long-term problems for the economy,” it said. 

“If the national democratic revolution is to remain relevant, the working class needs to score some gains and these gains must take the form of a reduction in the rate of exploitation of employed labour. Cosatu will not allow the working class to be used as cannon-fodder for the country’s capitalist system to recover from the crisis,” it added.