MBABANE:Mbongwa Dlamini, the President of the Swaziland National Association of Teachers(SNAT) has described the signed salary increment agreement with Government as a historic win for civil servants.
Speaking to this Swaziland News on Wednesday evening when asked to unpack the signed agreement, the SNAT President whose organization forms part of the Public Sector Unions(PSUs) said, they decided to allow Government to postpone the payment of the back-pay and immediately increase the salaries.
“We decided to allow Government to postpone the payment of the back-pay because, it’s easy to fight for the back-pay in court and without engaging in a strike action but, it’s complicated to fight for a salary increment. So we decided that, Government must implement the full salary increment and then pay the civil servants their back-pay later”, he said.
The SNAT President said, while negotiating, they were very careful not to make demands that will collapse the negotiations with Government and force them to call a strike action.
“Civil servants are financially broke so we don’t want them to engage in a strike action as a way of forcing Government to implement the salary review. We used our negotiation skills as trade union leaders to secure the best deal with Government for our members without any engaging in a strike action that might attract a “no work no pay” and worsen the financial challenges faced by the civil servants”, said the SNAT President.
SNAT President Mbongwa Dlamini.