- Public service unions want government to honour a 2018 three-year wage agreement for CPI, plus a 1% increase.
- National Treasury has indicated that government has little choice but to contain the public service wage bill as part of keeping costs in check.
- Unions will argue in the apex court that the agreement was legal, valid and must be honoured.
Unions representing workers in the public service – including teachers, police officers and nurses – pulled no punches when they outlined their plans to appeal an "erroneous" Labour Appeal Court ruling on their wage agreement with government at the Constitutional Court.
The South African Democratic Teachers' Union (Sadtu) released a statement saying that public sector unions affiliated with its mother federation, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), applied for leave to appeal the Labour Appeal Court ruling in December, which determined their wage agreement with government invalid.
In a statement released on Monday, Sadtu said the appeal seeks to put to rest the nearly year-long dispute with government on a three-year wage agreement that government entered into with unions in 2018, which included consumer price index (CPI) plus 1% wage increases.
However, fiscal pressures have prompted government to indicate that the State will no longer be able to honour the agreement as Finance Minister Tito Mboweni announced plans to reduce the expenditure on public service wages by some R160 billion over three years.
The Labour Appeal Court ruled that the three-year collective agreement with government over wages was constitutionally invalid and unlawful. The unions now plan to appeal the ruling at the Constitutional Court.
'Court was wrong'
Sadtu secretary-general John Maluleke said the Labour Appeal Court was wrong in its approach as the challenge to the validity of the collective agreement was an afterthought and that the real issue is the affordability of the agreement itself.
"There is no breach of section 216 of the Constitution in holding National Treasury to the decision of the Cabinet, of which the minister of finance was part. I point out in this regard that the minister of public service and administration, on the one hand, and the minister of finance, on the other, presented conflicting oral submissions on this issue," said Maluleke.
Maluleke said, if the collective agreement had been unconstitutional or any regulations had been breached, government appreciated that unlawfulness - even prior the conclusion of the agreement.
"I am advised that, since the court found that there is a delay, government failed to provide an explanation for the delay, which rendered the delay unreasonable. I say that the court found that there was a delay because the court, with respect, wrongly considered whether the delay could be overlooked in the circumstances," Maluleke said.
Maluleke has filed an affidavit in the Constitutional Court on behalf of Sadtu, the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa and the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union.