Hundreds of thousands of teachers, nurses, police and other public sector employees walked off the job across South Africa on Thursday to demand better wages in one of the biggest strikes since the end of apartheid a decade ago.
Eight unions representing close to one million employees launched the nation-wide one-day strike and told the government to come up with a better salary offer in 48 hours or face a new wave of protest action on Monday and Tuesday.
"Negotiations have reached a dead end... the public service is heading for a crisis," said Fekile Majola, the general secretary of the National Education Health and Allied Workers Union, at the main protest march in Pretoria.
The country's largest labour federation, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), said about 700,000 workers, including 320,000 teachers, stayed away from work but the government said about 250,000 public sector workers took part in the strike.
Government negotiator Kenny Govendor told AFP that initial figures showed the education sector was most affected with 180,000 - half of all teachers - downing chalks.
"But there was no real impact in the essential services sector," Govendor said.
The unions agreed to hold another round of negotiations on Friday to try to resolve a dispute over their demand for a seven-percent wage increase. The government is offering six percent and has said there is no more money in the coffers to bolster the salaries of South Africa's 1.1 million public sector workers.
"We think public servants have sent out a very clear message to the government that they are extremely unhappy. The strike was a huge success," Public Servants Association general manager Anton Louwrens said.
Police estimate that about 100,000 employees participated in marches countrywide, while unions said it was twice as much.
Donning yellow and red union T-shirts and matching caps, a sea of protesters danced and sang through Pretoria's streets, carrying placards that read: "If you get paid peanuts, you get monkeys." The protesters booed Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi as she accepted a memorandum from union leaders demanding a new offer in 48 hours and reminded the marchers of the government's no work, no pay policy.
The marchers swore at her in Afrikaans, telling her to "get out".
"You go tell Fraser-Moleketi that she can take her six percent and give it to her dogs," a labour relations officer, who only wanted to be known as "Mandla", told AFP.
The unions' main gripe is that the government offer would be valid for two years and increases for the ensuing two years would be equal to a projected low inflation rate which excludes mortgage rates.
Unions also contend that public sector employees are grossly underpaid with the average gross salaries of police officers, teachers and nurses standing at around 5,000 rand (760 dollars / 620 euros) per month.
In August 1999, some 400,000 public servants took to the streets but they failed in pushing the government into increasing its wage offer. That was the largest strike since the first democratic elections in 1994 that saw the African National Congress voted into power.
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