The Congress for South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said that it would put pressure on government until public servants got salary increments as per the agreement signed in 2018.
Cosatu in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) has staged a picket outside the offices of the provincial Treasury in Pietermaritzburg – among their demands is for vacant positions within the state to be filled.
This is despite calls for the public wage bill to be chopped and budgetary constraints pronounced by Finance Minister Tito Mboweni.
Cosatu KZN secretary Edwin Mkhize said that government must remember that workers voted them into power on the condition that their jobs would be protected.
“The government needs to make sure that they come up with a comprehensive and concrete plan to end retrenchments and for job creation.”
Mkhize said that workers must not be denied fair wages in a bid to fix the country’s ailing economy.
“We don’t believe in that the government does not have money. It’s an instruction that has been given that workers must be used as a scapegoat and they must not receive their salary increment.”
Cosatu has submitted a memorandum of demands to provincial Treasury officials in which they also call for greater investment in health and safety material for workers.