Public servants in Swaziland
/ eSwatini are threatening to work only three days a week in the latest move in
a two-year-old pay dispute.
They want a 14.4 percent
cost of living increase but the government of absolute monarch King Mswati III
has said it cannot afford to pay anything.
Public service unions
marched on government on Wednesday (26 June 2019) to deliver a petition.
After the march the Times
of Swaziland reported union negotiators said if the government
did not meet their pay claim by July, public servants would only work three
days a week in future.
It reported, ‘Their
argument was that as it was, they were working five days per week but received
a salary equivalent to three days, based on the erosion by inflation rate in
the past two financial years.’
Negotiations are due to
continue between unions and government next Wednesday.
Four public service unions
have joined forces in the negotiation; they are the National Public Service and
Allied Workers Union (NAPSAWU), Swaziland National Association of Teachers
(SNAT), Swaziland Democratic Nurses Union (SWADNU) and the Swaziland Government
Accountants Personnel (SNAGAP).
Ahead
of the march, SNAT said the government claimed it had no money but
continued to spend on ‘national celebrations that do not feed into the
developmental agenda for the country’. These included the King’s Birthday. It
said, ‘Millions of Emalangeni were spent in these vanity activities and yet the
middle class and the poor continued to live in abject poverty. With 70 percent of
the population living in rural areas and 63 percent of the population living
below the bread-line, it spells doom for Swaziland.’
See also
Industrial
Court stops Swaziland public servants strike at last minute
Swaziland
absolute monarch gets millions in cash as birthday gifts while people die
through lack of medicine
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