If unions want more money they must show what SA will get in return

Apparently the public services sector unions are gunning for a 10% increase for their members.

Cool. Sounds doable amid an already stretched tax base, near 50% of the population on social support and increasing unemployment. Remember last month when the rand was in the R14/$1 bracket? That was pretty nice for a while.

But yes, the public sector wants more money, or at least their unions say they do. Nothing wrong with that. We all want more money.

Thing is, for the rest of us, when we want more money, we need to make a case for it. We show the value we bring and negotiate.

If those we negotiate with are smart and have budgets to work with, the consideration is easy; can we afford this and is it worth our while? If the answer to both of those is yes, cool, take your increase.

In the case of the public sector, I’m not convinced of an affirmative answer in either case. One need not have grade 9 economics to understand that the country can ill afford a 10% increase on some 700 billion bucks.

What’s most outstanding though is that there doesn’t seem to be any realising that we’re getting less value over time, the more we pay.

It used to be that public hospitals were good, even in the 2000s. Now they’re so awful that we have a whole debate about a national health insurance scheme.

Oh sorry, it’s not a debate. It’s something we just need to accept will happen. I don’t care how skilled and able the doctors and nurses are.

If they’re in a place where they can’t apply their trade because the hospital has no gloves, why are we paying them?

Yet, it seems the unions aren’t out here demanding that their members are given functional work environments because the output isn’t really a priority for them so much as the salaries of their members.

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Similarly, on the less skilled side of things, I’m all for employment opportunities. I would just like to see the results of that employment.

Seeing a crowd of 10 people standing around three who are actually working is commonplace, yet all 13 are being paid and to do what?

If those people go on strike, we’re not losing the economic input of 13 people, we’re losing that of 3. So, economically, it’s less expensive to have our workers not work… but economics was lost upon us when we lost Thabo Mbeki anyway.

Obviously, unions want their members to get more money.

That’s what they’re there for. What I don’t understand is that the state seems to lack any desire to push back and even if they had the desire, it’s not like they are in a position to.

In the early 90s when SAA had the best pilots and could hold onto them cheap because no other country could hire South Africans, they had no plans for increased wages.

When the borders opened and the pilots were in the driving seat of negotiations, however, SAA had to cut deals to keep them even though the company would eventually sink, over and over.

Turns out, we never even really needed SAA, yet paid for a bailout after bailout.

Seems we never learned from that. Go figure. Now the numbers are bigger but the questions remain the same; can we afford this and is it worth our while?

It’s obviously not nice to be considering cutting jobs and costing people their livelihood and that needs to be considered and dealt with. If your gambit is unsustainable, it’s going to happen at some point anyway.

So, I actually don’t feel too uncomfortable to suggest that if you want a 10% increase, sweet but show the public what they get in return because I’ll bet the unions won’t even know where to start.

Better yet, you want a 10% increase? Maybe start by cutting 10% of the fat.

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