{"id":11471,"date":"2012-06-14T11:16:15","date_gmt":"2012-06-14T09:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/06\/update-1-s-africa-breaks-off-state-worker-wage-talks\/"},"modified":"2012-06-14T11:16:15","modified_gmt":"2012-06-14T09:16:15","slug":"update-1-s-africa-breaks-off-state-worker-wage-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/update-1-s-africa-breaks-off-state-worker-wage-talks\/","title":{"rendered":"UPDATE 1-S.Africa breaks off state worker wage talks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>(Adds background)<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">JOHANNESBURG, June 14<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa has broken<br \/>\noff wage talks with 1.3 million state workers seeking<br \/>\nabove-inflation pay increases that threaten the government&#8217;s<br \/>\nability to keep this year&#8217;s budget deficit in check at 4.6<br \/>\npercent of GDP, union officials said on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The state has lost patience and terminated bargaining,&#8221;<br \/>\nsaid Chris Klopper, spokesman for the Independent Labour Caucus,<br \/>\na state union umbrella group involved in the negotiations.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU),<br \/>\nrepresenting 14 state unions with an estimated 1.3 million<br \/>\nmembers, has been pushing for an 8 percent raise, down from 10<br \/>\npercent initially demanded.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The government has been offering 6.5 percent, compared with<br \/>\nheadline inflation at 6.1 percent in April.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>In its February budget, the Treasury allowed for a wage<br \/>\nincrease of only 5 percent for public servants, adding that a<br \/>\nballooning state salary bill was crowding out investment in<br \/>\ninfrastructure and other key productive sectors.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Any settlement above 5 percent is likely to undermine the<br \/>\ngovernment&#8217;s ability to get the budget deficit in Africa&#8217;s<br \/>\nbiggest economy down from the current forecast of 4.6 percent of<br \/>\nGDP.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>South African wage negotiations tend to last several weeks<br \/>\nin a mid-year bargaining session known as &#8220;strike season&#8221;, with<br \/>\nunions often downing tools to back their demands, disrupting<br \/>\nmine production and hitting services in hospitals and schools.\t<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Ed Cropley)<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright\">\n<p>         \t\t\u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Adds background) JOHANNESBURG, June 14 (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa has broken off wage talks with 1.3 million state workers seeking above-inflation pay increases that threaten the government&#8217;s ability to keep this year&#8217;s budget deficit in check at 4.6 percent of GDP, union officials said on Thursday. &#8220;The state has lost patience and terminated bargaining,&#8221; said [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-11471","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11471\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}