South African workers have not backed down from demanding a bigger slice in ongoing wage negotiations to make up for the shortfall on their paycheques on the back of escalating cost of living, elevated levels of unemployment and economic recession.
The country commemorated the workers' May Day yesterday with rallies across the country’s major cities attended by thousands of workers who have grown despondent by the prevailing economic climate.
This comes as the Independent Commission on the Remuneration of Public Office Bearers recommended that all Political Office Bearers should get a 3.8% salary increase, a decision that has incensed unions.
The workers unions have slammed the government’s persistence with “neo-liberal macroeconomic fiscal and monetary policies”, saying these policies have left many living lives of brute survival.
The Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) on Friday said that unions needed to work together to deal with the rising cost of living and levels of indebtedness among workers.
Cosatu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said all unions needed to cooperate and work together during this year’s round of wage negotiations to fight for decent wages for the workers.
Pamla said workers needed to work together to push for the necessary financial and management interventions to rebuild embattled State-Owned Enterprises, many of which were retrenching workers at an alarming rate.
“Workers deserve decent wages that will keep up with inflation so that they can afford to put food on the table and feed and clothe their families. Our priority should be a push-back against the electricity and petrol price increases,” Pamla said.
“Workers need to unite to fight fiscal austerity and the attempts by the government to outsource the bill for corruption and mismanagement to ordinary workers. Public servants, like other workers, are drowning in debt and over the past few years have seen their wages being eroded by inflation.”
Cosatu said both the employed and the unemployed needed to fight together to force the government to offer meaningful relief to the poor and unemployed and end load shedding.
South Africa has more than 12 million unemployed people, with 75% of those employed earning a meagre wage below R5 800 a month, and the ongoing power cuts have crippled any prospects of creating more jobs.
The April 2023 Household Affordability Index compiled by the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity (PMBEJD) group on Friday also revealed that the average price of a household food basket was more than R5 000 in April.
“On our calculations, using Pietermaritzburg-based figures for electricity and transport, and the average figure for a minimum nutritional basket of food for a family of four, puts electricity and transport, taking up 58.2% of a worker’s wage (R2 011.50/R3 457.12),” the PMBEJD said.
“Food is bought after monies for transport and electricity have been paid for or set aside (leaving only R1 445.62 – for food and everything else), and so, in April 2023, PMBEJD calculates that workers’ families will underspend on food by a minimum of 58.7% (having R1 445.62 left after transport and electricity, and with food costing R3 499.59). In this scenario, there is no possibility of a worker being able to afford enough nutritious food for her family.
“If the entire R1 445.62 all went to buy food, then for a family of four persons, we are looking at R361.41 per person per month. This is below the food poverty line of R663.”
Meanwhile, the unexpected headline inflation increase from 7.0% in February to a 14-year high of 7.1% in March, among other factors, led to take-home pay slipping marginally during the month.
The latest BankservAfrica Take-home Pay Index (BPTI) showed that a new trend was emerging in the local job market as more companies operate under the challenging economic environment of persisting load shedding and higher costs.
BankservAfrica’s head of Stakeholder Engagements, Shergeran Naidoo, said salaries measured in the BTPI had been disappointing over the past 12 months.
“The average nominal take-home pay in March declined on a monthly basis to R15 321,” Naidoo said. “However, this was still 1.8% higher than the R15 046 recorded a year earlier.”
The recent depreciation in the rand exchange rate and additional cost of production due to load shedding and related extra expenditure has clearly added an additional layer of costs to the economy.
“With inflation remaining elevated for longer than hoped for and little indication of a notably different economic environment in 2023, salary adjustments and the job market will likely remain lacklustre this year,” said independent economist Elize Kruger.
SA Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) general-secretary Zwelinzima Vavi blamed the plight of the workers squarely on the government’s macroeconomic policies and capitalism.
Vavi said the escalating cost of living had been exacerbated by speculative swindling in commodities and monopoly profit mark-ups in consumer pricing, as well as a falling rand which reflects inappropriate macroeconomic management.
“In other words, we have an increasing mass of people with diminishing buying power, and goods and services that they need, but increasingly cannot afford. The disastrous consequences are clear in urban areas where commodification has permeated every sphere of life,” he said.
“Clearly, capitalism fails to meet the obligations it set for itself, in a bourgeois liberal constitution that speaks so eloquently of human dignity and socio-economic rights.”
BUSINESS REPORT