TEACHERS PLAN ‘WALK-TO-WORK’ CAMPAIGN

MANZINI – The opening of schools in 2023 is under threat as teachers are planning to engage in a ‘walk-to-work’ campaign over commuting allowance.

According to a source close to the matter, the teachers’ plan is to pile pressure on government to ensure that allowances, mainly commuting allowances, were reviewed during the salary review exercise, which the employer had promised to implement during the 2023/24 financial year. Government’s financial year will begin on April 1, 2023. Schools are scheduled to reopen on January 17, 2023.

Concern

The source said their concern was that commuting allowance had been E0.17/km for a long time and government failed to increase it to E0.70/km in 2016 as per the 2017 salary review recommendations. He said this affected them because they were forced to dig deep into their pockets in order to get to work, yet they were paid meagre salaries. The source said they would not use their little hard-earned money to assist an employer who was purportedly reluctant to improve their conditions of service. “To make matters worse, we are only compensated twice a month (June and December), but the allowance they get does not lean towards matching the actual money we use when going to work,” the source said.

When asked how the ‘walk-to-work’ campaign would mount pressure on government, the source said since some schools did not have enough accommodation for teachers, while others did not have it at all, it meant that most teachers commuted to work. Therefore, he said the teaching and learning process in schools would be affected since the educators would not make it on time. “We believe that this will pile pressure on government to ensure that allowances are reviewed and recommendations of the salary review are implemented as they are, as per the agreement which was reached at the Joint Negotiation Forum (JNF),” the source said.

Again, the source highlighted that in its position paper of 2020 at the JNF, government recalled that the review of allowances emanated from the recommendations of the 2016 salary review report, wherein its implementation came with fiscal challenges.

Review

In the position paper, government said about E850 million was available for the salary review implementation, which was not sufficient to cater for both the salary increment and allowances, thus it ended up implementing the pay rise only. Thereafter, government said the wage bill of E7.2 billion by the end of 2019/20, which excluded pensions, was a cause for concern as at that time, it stood at about 40 per cent of total recurrent expenditure. The administration urged the PSAs to appreciate and acknowledge that the implementation of the year 2016 salary review had contributed to its fiscal challenges.

In that regard, the employer said in light of the foregoing, its fiscal position was not in a good position to accommodate the review of allowances. It said this was evident in government’s inability to offer the cost-of-living adjustment (CoLA) for three consecutive years (2017/18 to 2019/20). It then said allowances would be reviewed during the next salary review exercise to be implemented in the upcoming fiscal year.

Meanwhile, the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) Secretary General, Lot Vilakati, said they subscribed to their members’ call for a walk-to-work campaign. He said the campaign would also address the issue of housing allowances as some schools did not have accommodation for teachers. He said after the review, they expected to get nothing less than E3/km as commuting allowance. Currently, housing allowance for civil servants stands at E600/m on average and the 2016 salary review exercise had recommended that it should be around E3 000/m on average.

Bilateral

On the other hand, Richard Phungwayo, the Acting Principal Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Public Service, said the employer could not comment on the matter because nothing official had been presented to it. However, he highlighted that they believed that SNAT was a well-organised organisation. As such, he said if it had something to discuss with the employer, it should raise it either at the JNF or bilateral talks. On the other hand, other unions, which are under the Public Sector Unions (PSUs) of Swaziland, said they had not discussed the matter with their members. However, they highlighted that as they planned their meetings as PSUs, they would include it on their agenda. Mayibongwe Masangane, the Secretary General of the Swaziland Democratic Nurses Union (SWADNU), said if teachers had taken some measures to pressure government regarding the reviewing of allowances, they would also meet to discuss possible strategies to implement.

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