No deal as S Africa govt strike enters second week

JOHANNESBURG, June 10 (Reuters) South Africa's government vowed today to press ahead with firing essential workers striking for higher pay despite being barred by law, a move denounced as provocative by labour unions.

Labour unions promised to continue with a nine-day-old strike, and called the weekend dismissal of health workers a provocative act of intimidation.

The health department said it was processing termination letters against health workers taking part in a public sector workers' strike which began on June 1 and has crippled government hospitals and schools across the country.

Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi today said the number of striking employees had gradually declined, but there were increasing reports of intimidation against those wanting to return to work.

''The ministers of Safety and Security and Defence have committed their resources, ensuring that all government services continue with minimal disruption and that members of the public are able to access these services,'' she said in a statement.

The government has deployed soldiers to help doctors tend to patients at some hospitals.

''No one is coming (to help patients) except the soldiers.

But the soldiers don't know everything like the nurses,'' one patient said on state television.

The powerful COSATU labour federation, which includes a number of civil service unions, said it had consistently condemned acts of violence and intimidation by either side in the dispute.

''But what could be more intimidatory than to kick workers out of their jobs when they are struggling to improve their lives,'' it said in a statement, reiterating that it was mobilising all of its more than one million members for a general sympathy strike on Wednesday.

Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said the government had not worked out the financial cost of the strike, but that it had hit the poor without access to private health care.

''How can you prevent paramedics from exercising emergency medical care? How can you do that and justify this as being part of a wage demand? No society should tolerate it,'' Manuel said in remarks broadcast on state radio.

The National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union today said firing health workers would undermine ongoing wage talks between labour and government.

Workers want a 10 per cent salary increase, scaled down from an initial 12 per cent. The government is offering 6.5 per cent, but unions say this only just keeps pace with consumer inflation of over six per cent in April.

REUTERS RJ RAI2330