{"id":11848,"date":"2012-06-26T11:56:19","date_gmt":"2012-06-26T09:56:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/06\/s-africa-and-state-workers-move-closer-to-wage-deal\/"},"modified":"2012-06-26T11:56:19","modified_gmt":"2012-06-26T09:56:19","slug":"s-africa-and-state-workers-move-closer-to-wage-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/s-africa-and-state-workers-move-closer-to-wage-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"S.Africa and state workers move closer to wage deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">JOHANNESBURG, June 26<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; Unions representing about<br \/>\n1.3 million South African state workers and the government have<br \/>\nnarrowed differences on a wage deal, nearing a settlement on pay<br \/>\nrises that could add more than $1 billion to budget spending.<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>A union official said on Tuesday the government had offered<br \/>\na three-year deal with a 6.7 percent increase for this year,<br \/>\nwith second year increases of inflation plus 0.7 percent and<br \/>\nthird year increases of inflation plus 0.5 percent.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Negotiations seem to be back on track,&#8221; said Chris Klopper,<br \/>\nspokesman for the Independent Labour Caucus, one of the more<br \/>\nthan a dozen unions in contract talks with the government.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Talks over pay increases broke down last week, raising the<br \/>\nthreat of a strike that could shut hospitals and schools. The<br \/>\ngovernment had offered a 6.5 percent wage increase this year<br \/>\nwhile unions were looking for a figure over 7 percent.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Public services minister Lindiwe Sisulu said last week the<br \/>\n6.5 percent offer would swell spending and cost the government<br \/>\nabout 10 billion rand ($1.2 billion) more than had already been<br \/>\nset side.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Wages for government employees are the largest sector of<br \/>\nstate spending, equivalent to more than 40 percent of tax<br \/>\nrevenue. A perk to provide civil servants with about $100 a<br \/>\nmonth to help them with housing ends up costing South Africa as<br \/>\nmuch each year as its court system.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Union officials said the government is looking to cut the<br \/>\namount it spends for housing allowances, which could pose a<br \/>\nstumbling block.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Talks are set to continue but no date has been given for the<br \/>\nnext bargaining session.<br \/>\n($1 = 8.4995 South African rand)<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; editing by David Dolan)<\/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>JOHANNESBURG, June 26 (Reuters) &#8211; Unions representing about 1.3 million South African state workers and the government have narrowed differences on a wage deal, nearing a settlement on pay rises that could add more than $1 billion to budget spending. A union official said on Tuesday the government had offered a three-year deal with a [&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-11848","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\/11848","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=11848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11848\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}