South African Workers on Strike

 Public sector workers in South Africa have begun an indefinite strike after rejecting the government's offer of a pay rise.Unions affiliated with Cosatu, South Africa's main union federation, have been holding out for an 8.6% rise, more than the latest government offer of 7%.

Many schools and hospitals and public offices are going to be affected by this one,Last week tens of thousands of public sector workers staged marches to hand over their demands to authorities.The government has increased its offer to 7%, but this has so far been rejected by unions, with negotiations continuing until late on Tuesday.The coalition of unions threatening to strike represents an estimated 1.3 million public sector workers, including government office and judicial employees.

A spokesman for Cosatu, the country's main umbrella labour group, was quoted as saying that 90% of those workers could take part.“We will only stop when government responds” said Thobile Ntola SADTU teachers' union
BBC's Pumza Fihlani in Johannesburg says it is difficult to gauge how big the latest strike will be because some unions are still to confirm whether they will participate, while others decided to strike too late to get word out to all their members.
This reminds  me of something .A quote by our most honorable...Prezzo.'sihitaji kura za wafanyakazi'...hawa watu wanafanya kweli...When they say want a raise, they mean a raise! no negotiations! Thats how it should be... I can imagine sweating this one off ryt now...
The state has insisted it cannot meet the unions' demands without trimming public services, amid fierce pressure to improve schools and expand access to water and electricity.

The public services ministry on Tuesday said it remained committed to a solution but that "any further movement would require tradeoffs on service delivery programmes and job creation".
It called on workers to demonstrate peacefully, condemning disruptive protests, and warned that a "no work, no pay" principle applied to those who went on strike.
Workers in essential services like health, police, prisons and ports of entry are expected to report for duty, it added.The government is looking to avoid a repeat of a crippling four-week strike three years ago which was the longest and most widespread since the end of apartheid in 1994.One thing i can tell ya, South African Unions are pretty powerful!