News24.com | Cosatu calls on govt to mend relationship with public workers after Budget Speech

• In responding to the Budget Speech, Cosatu said the government needed to work on its relationship with workers to achieve economic growth.
• Its president, Zingiswa Losi, said workers were not included in the 3.3% wage increase negotiations.
• Cosatu added a "turnaround" plan was needed to tackle corruption and mismanagement at state-owned entities.

Cosatu has urged the government to "mend" its relationship with public workers, who have become "disillusioned" and "overworked", to improve and develop the country's economy. 

It released a statement on Tuesday in response to the wage bill, unemployment, and the bailout of state-owned entities as discussed by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana during his Budget Speech. 

Cosatu called the proposed 3.3% wage bill increase, in contrast to the 4.5% salary increase allocated from the same budget for Cabinet members and MPs, scandalous.

"It is obvious that they are intent on balancing the books by pickpocketing nurses, teachers, and other hard-working public servants," read the statement.

It said the government should have communicated with organised labour at the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council to develop a suitable wage package that considered public workers' demands and protected them from inflation. 

READ| Budget 2023: Public sector unions reject Godongwana's Budget, warn of indefinite strike

Speaking to News24 on the sidelines of a press briefing, Cosatu president Zingiswa Losi said government negotiators proposed the 3.3% increase the Friday before the speech without including the workers' demands. 

"Once you table them [the demands], and then you move the following week to a budget vote, literally you are saying it does not matter whether your constituencies agreed to or not, but we are pronouncing them.

"So, you are not negotiating; you are telling them that this is what I am going to give you," Losi added. 

Cosatu said it welcomed the 2.5% economic growth in 2022 and the Presidential Employment Stimulus, which has created 500 000 job opportunities for the youth. However, it shared its concern about the stagnant 60% youth unemployment.

It added these figures reflected the failure of government initiatives such as the National Development Plan (NDP) 2030 to reduce poverty and unemployment while accelerating economic growth. 

"These indicators highlight the dismal failure of the neoliberal macroeconomic framework that has been consistently applied since 1996 under different guises - from Growth, Employment, and Redistribution to Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa and now NDP."

In its statement, Cosatu said it welcomed the "relief" offered by Godongwana to assist Eskom with its debt as it would aid the SOE.

"This will enable it to shift its resources to ramp up high-impact targeted maintenance and invest in the new generation." It added it welcomed the bailout of SAA, the SA Post Office, and Transnet but was concerned about the "lack" of a "turnaround plan" to challenge corruption and mismanagement within these SOEs. 

Budget 2023 | Everything you need to know

"The failure to present a coherent and comprehensive turnaround plan for SOEs shows that government seems hellbent on continuing with privatisation to address the public sector debt burden and failures in the governance and management of SOEs."

Cosatu said although rising debt was a concern, it would advise the economy remained stagnant. 

"Rather than choking the economy with austerity measures, the government needed to implement policies that support economic growth," it added.