Johannesburg - The Constitutional Court has dismissed an application by trade unions representing public servants to force the government to implement the last leg of a three-year wage agreement signed in 2018.
The unions which include Cosatu affiliates, the National Education Health and Allied Workers Union, the Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA, the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union, and the SA Democratic Teachers Union, failed in their bid to overturn a Labour Appeal Court ruling dismissing their bid to force the government to implement salary increases that were due in 2020.
The National Union of Public Service and Allied Workers Union, the SA Policing Union, the Public Servants Association, the National Professional Teachers Organisation of SA, the Health and Other Services Personnel Trade Union of SA, the SA Teachers Union and the National Teachers Union were also part of the application.
In an unanimous judgment penned by Acting Justice Mjabuliseni Madondo, the apex court found that it would not be fair or just to enforce the clause where this would interfere with the State’s obligation to protect the lives of vulnerable people exposed to the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic.
”The State is now compelled by the Covid-19 circumstances to spend additional funds to protect vulnerable people, some of whom have been rendered destitute by job losses or salary cuts in the private sector,” the Constitutional Court ruled.
According to ActingJustice Madondo, on account of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is also imperative for the State to spend public funds which are already in deficit, to alleviate the plight of the poor and vulnerable citizens.
”The evidence establishes that none of the Covid-19 consequences were foreseen or reasonably foreseeable when the collective agreement was concluded. Not even the adverse fiscal developments pre-dating the Covid-19 pandemic were foreseen. Instead, all the parties involved in the collective bargaining process knew that the budgetary deficit in the collective agreement was proposed to be reduced by way of cost-cutting measures,” the apex court found.
Acting Justice Madondo said the unions repeatedly repudiated the government’s efforts and demanded that it fulfil its obligations regardless of the Covid-19 pandemic.
He added that their demands came at a time when the country’s workforce including high-echelon public servants, Cabinet and Parliament, had suffered salary cuts or freezes as a consequence of the economic conditions and the pandemic.
”It would not be fair or just to enforce the clause where this would interfere with the State’s obligation to protect the lives of vulnerable people exposed to the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic,” reads the judgment.
Acting Justice Madondo said because public servants receive inflation-beating and private sector outperforming salary increases, to insist on the specific performance of the salary agreement will infringe on section 7(2) of the Constitution, which enjoins the State to respect, protect, promote and fulfil the rights in the Bill of Rights.
loyiso.sidimba@inl.co.za
Political Bureau