Malawi civil servants issue 21-day ultimatum

Civil servants have said they feel betrayed by government on the issue of their salary revision for the 2015/16 financial year set to start on July 1 and have given their employer 21 days to clarify issues.
Through their representative body, the Civil Servants Trade Union (CSTU), the employees said the information they have from Treasury indicates that government will not honour what they had initially agreed during their salary revision negotiations.

They have since given government a 21-day ultimatum to “ensure that it critically looks at the salary increment for the lower grade employees.”
CSTU secretary general Madalitso Njolomole said in an interview yesterday one of the conditions to the Salary Revision was to give junior civil servants higher percentages than their senior cadres.
He said: “We have information that what government is offering is far below what [was] agreed. So, we have given it 21 days ultimatum [from May 22 to June11 2015] to critically look at these adjustments by implementing what was already agreed.”

In his 2015/16 National Budget Statement delivered in Parliament on May 22, Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development Goodall Gondwe did not clearly state how much government would offer civil servants.
However, the minister said in the statement government will push up the wage bill from K198 billion (US$440 million) in 2014/15 financial year to an estimated K228.7 billion (US$508.2 million).
In its letter to government addressed to the Chief Secretary to the Government, CSTU said it felt betrayed by government’s conduct and believe the negotiations were not in good faith.
Reads in part the letter The Nation has seen: “CSTU wishes to bring to the attention of the Malawi Government that any salary increase in the 2015/2016 financial year contrary to what was agreed is not acceptable and we therefore give government 21 days from today May 22 2015 to June 11 2015 to ensure implementation [of] the salary increase.”
Further, CSTU warns that failure by government to meet the demand shall leave them with no option but call for a nationwide industrial action in the entire civil service including all teachers and health workers.
During the 2014/15 financial year the civil servants salary revision favoured senior civil servants of grades I to A who got an average increase of between 70 percent and 110 percent against the junior cadres in grades R to J who were offered an average of 35 to 52 percent.
In an interview yesterday, Mkondiwa confirmed receiving the CSTU letter and said the matter was being handled by Ministry of Labour and Manpower Development, government‘s advisers on labour-related issues.
“I can confirm that government received the letter from CSTU and through the Ministry of Labour, who are part of the Government Negotiating Team [GNT] we wrote them back but we are yet to get any feedback,” said Mkondiwa without elaborating the contents in the letter.
But during negotiations between CSTU and the Government Negotiating Team (GNT) the two parties agreed to give junior staff higher percentage as one of the conditions for the 2015/16 salary revision to substantially match prevailing cost of living.