20100813
reuters

PRETORIA (Reuters) - Major South African public sector unions will respond next week to a revised government pay offer, suspending for several days a threatened mass strike they said would bring services to a halt, officials said on Friday.

The offer has temporarily defused tensions after the unions gave the government an ultimatum to come up with a better deal and may have caused a few cracks in the coalition of unions, with some groups looking favourably on the offer, labour sources who asked not to be named said.

Unions in the country's largest labour umbrella group COSATU said they would reply on Tuesday to the new offer that is likely to swell the budget as the government tries to bring the deficit down from 6.7 percent of gross domestic product.

"We recognise the increase from the employer but we still feel it is a long way from our initial demands," said Fikile Majola of the NEHAWU union, which is affiliated with COSATU.

A separate state workers' union not affiliated with COSATU said it would take a week to respond to the offer.

The government on Thursday improved its offer to a coalition of unions representing about 1.3 million state workers who staged a one-day strike on Tuesday and then threatened a prolonged strike starting as early as Friday.

The government offered to increase the monthly housing allowance to 700 rand from a previous offer of 630 rand, but kept its wage rise offer at 7 percent. The housing allowance alone would be equal to about 1 percent of budget spending.

The unions are demanding an 8.6 percent pay rise, more than double the inflation rate, and 1,000 rand for housing.