Police threaten to down tools over unilateral 3% pay hike

DURBAN - The police have threatened to down tools amid wage disputes after the government has unilaterally given the unions a 3% increase while they wanted 10%.

This was revealed by Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) KZN provincial secretary Nthabeleng Molefe during the one-day national strike on Tuesday.

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Thousands of public sector workers across the country under the SA Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu), the Federation of Unions of South Africa (Fedusa) and Cosatu embarked on the strike action over the government’s decision to offer 3%.

The unions had initially demanded a 10% increase, but reduced it to 6.5%, which they said was below the inflation rate. Molefe said government was showing arrogance and insulting public servants by implementing the 3% unilaterally.

“We are going to have a central executive meeting to evaluate everything and if the decision that is reached there states that our police should down tools we will make this country unrulable,” she said.

“We will ensure that there would be no law enforcement on the ground, but that is the possible decision we will take based on the conclusions of the meeting.

“Since we do have the permit to strike we must go back to Nedlac (National Economic Development and Labour Council) and give them 14 days (notice) that we are moving to an indefinite strike until our demands are met,” said Molefe.

Speaking about the challenges faced by the police, Molefe said that compared with 2020, when there were more than 25,000 police officers, in 2022 there were about 22,000 or fewer.

“Most of our officers resigned and stopped working while others died. We have 18,000 officers that work outside the station and those remaining work inside the stations. Looking at the KZN population it is continuously growing due to the developments while we are short-staffed,” she said.

Public Servants Association of SA provincial manager Mlungisi Ndlovu said it was shocking that the government increases the wages of ministers while the “real workers” are suffering.

“Government workers are taken for a ride. They are forced to take the 3%. We just want the government to go back to the negotiations,” said Ndlovu.

Fedusa’s provincial secretary Thembeka Thwala said the economy did not allow people’s wages to be increased by only 3% with the inflation rate so high.

“We are not happy with the percentage the government is offering the workers. The cost of living is also high. Therefore this percentage is not doing any justice while the workers are expected to travel to work, petrol and food prices are high. These are the workers who took a risk and went to ‘no work, no pay’ to voice their frustrations.”

President Cyril Ramaphosa was recently given seven days to respond to the workers’ demands after the rejection of a 3% hike.