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Home Affairs, border posts will be hit as 235 000 civil servants plan strike on Thursday

Source: News24, 15/11/2022

• The Public Servants` Association maintains that its strike in the public service will `definitely` commence on Thursday.
• Public unions affiliated with Cosatu will announce their plans in the deadlocked public service wage talks on Wednesday.
• Acting Minister of Public Service and Administration Thulas Nxesi will reply orally to questions about the wage talks in Parliament on Wednesday.
The Public Servants` Association (PSA) maintains that its strike in the public service will still `definitely` commence on Thursday, while the government said it would have measures in place to mitigate the impact of the industrial action.
The union has 235 000 members, and warned that its planned strike would hit Home Affairs, the Department of Transport, and South Africa border controls in particular. This will be the PSA`s first strike since 2010. The union was founded more than a century ago.
Government is unilaterally implementing a 3% wage hike this month, while the PSA is demanding 6.5%.
Only the SA Democratic Teachers` Union (Sadtu) has accepted government`s 3% wage offer, while Cosatu affiliates want a 10% increase.
The PSA will hold a march and picket at the offices of the National Treasury on Wednesday.
PSA assistant general manager Reuben Maleka told News24 that the PSA strike would `definitely` take place on Thursday.
The PSA said that if the strike becomes protracted, it had a fund in place to pay striking members. However, News24 understands that some in government only expect a one-day strike.
Maleka said the union would also march to the National Treasury to register its umbrage with Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana setting an average 3.1% increase to the public service wage bill in his Medium-term Budget Policy Statement in October.
This was in line with the Acting Minister of Public Service and Administration Thulas Nxesi`s decision to invoke section 5 of the Public Service Act to implement the 3% increase unilaterally, which will be paid out to qualifying public servants from next week.
The Department of Public Service and Administration said in a statement that it noted the PSA`s plans to embark on a national march on Thursday.
`The department has put measures in place to mitigate the impact of such an action by the PSA.`
It said rules state that picketing may `only take place during lunch hours or tea breaks outside the premises of the employer`.
`All provisions related to the management of employees participating in the protected strike shall apply,` the statement said.
In Parliament on Wednesday afternoon, Nxesi is set to appear in a plenary of the National Assembly to reply orally to questions regarding the ongoing deadlock in the public service wage talks.
Meanwhile, public service unions affiliated with the Cosatu - namely the National Education, Health, and Allied Workers` Union (Nehawu), the Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA (Denosa), and the Police, Prisons and Civil Rights Union (Popcru) - will hold a briefing on Wednesday to announce their plans after being awarded certificates of non-resolution.
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