Government workers to take fight for increases to Concourt

Can an employer simply back out of a collective bargaining agreement by crying poverty?

Fourteen South African union federations want the Constitutional Court to say this is not so; and are taking their battle with the biggest employer in the land – the state – to the highest court in the land, The Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the Federation of Unions of SA (Fedusa) and the Public Servants Association (PSA) are appealing a Labour Court ruling which favoured government after it backed out of a 2018 agreement to hike up wages for public servants.

Speaking on behalf of the unions, secretary-general of the SA Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) Mugwena Maluleke said the appeal would be based on three main arguments:

• That government’s argument that the increases were unenforceable couldn’t stand because it waited two years before acting to correct this;
• That the court did not consider all of the relevant correspondence between the employer and unions following the agreement;
• and That government did not even try to find a middle ground upon realising there wasn’t enough money to implement the wage increases.

Maluleke said the unions were concerned that left unchallenged, this judgment could have sweeping consequences for workers.

Retrospectively claiming to not have the funds could become an acceptable way for employers to avoid making good on collective bargaining agreements. Employers should be held to these agreements and in the case of financial impediments, should at least meet workers half way or find alternatives to original agreement.

“The court didn’t instruct the parties to go and find an incremental implementation of the agreement. They just said that it is unenforceable,” he said.

“A blanket judgement, to us, would give employers in the private sector and in government entities to use it to renege from bargaining collective agreements in the future, instead of looking for a remedy based on what is prevailing.”

One of the key reasons the government gave the court on why the agreed-upon increments were unenforceable was that the Covid-19 pandemic had depleted government resources.

– simnikiweh@citizen.co.za

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