Local media said unions representing state workers held
talks with the public service minister late on Thursday to try to end the
dispute that started last week over higher wages and has shut schools and
prevented medical treatment.
Government spokesman Themba Maseko would not comment on the
reports. Officials at two state workers’ unions in the coalition of more than a
dozen groups on strike discounted the reports and said there had been no new
negotiations.
The National Union of Mineworkers said its members would
launch a solidarity strike next Thursday that could deal a blow to the
country’s mining sector, which is responsible for about 5 to 6 percent of South
Africa’s gross domestic product.
“The NUM fully supports the public sector strike and would
next week Thursday ensure that every mining operation, every construction site
and every energy worker joins the public sector strike in different forms,” it
said in a statement.
NUM is the biggest union in the country’s largest labor
federation COSATU, which says it has 2 million members and on Thursday filed
seven-day strike notices that would allow members in affiliated unions to
strike..
Thousands of municipal workers were expected to defy a court
order and stage a one-day sympathy strike on Friday that could halt garbage
collection in major cities.
The NUM said on Friday some workers at a Rio Tinto-BHP
Billiton titanium joint venture had also downed tools in a dispute over wages.
The government has said it cannot afford the state workers’
demand of an 8.6 percent wage rise, more than double the inflation rate, and
1,000 rand ($137) a month as a housing allowance. It has offered 7 percent and
700 rand.
Any agreement to end the dispute is likely to swell state
spending by about 1 to 2 percent, forcing the government to find new funds just
as it tries to bring down a deficit totaling 6.7 percent of gross domestic
product.
Spending on personnel is the biggest category of state
expenditure, taking up about a third of the budget. In 2006/07, about 35
percent of tax revenue went to paying state employees and that rose to about 46
percent in 2009/10, which means any wage deal could lead to increased taxes.
Jasson Urbach, an economist with the Free Market Foundation,
estimated the work stoppage was costing the economy about $148 million a day.
An expanded strike would add to worries about prospects for
growth after the economy slowed more than expected in the second quarter of
2010 as mining contracted and manufacturing expanded at a slower pace.
Pressure is mounting on the government to reach a deal
before it deals a significant blow to Africa’s largest economy, which might
also help it mend ties with COSATU, which has said their decades-long alliance
was in jeopardy of rupture.
The unions are under the gun to reach a deal with public
opinion turning against them after strikers harassed students trying to go to
school and blocked the sick from seeking medical care, which health officials
said led to several deaths.