SAfrica unions expected to suspend strike-media

JOHANNESBURG, Jun 28 (Reuters) Unions representing hundreds of thousands of striking South Africa's civil servants are expected to suspend their protest after last night's wage talks with the government, South African media said today.

Unions said yesterday night they would announce their response to a government wage offer today at a news conference at 0900 GMT, raising hopes the end was in sight to a crippling four-week strike.

The Business Day newspaper and state radio SABC quoted sources saying a majority of the unions had agreed to call off the strike today, and accept the latest government offer.

Such a decision would end one of the largest mass actions since the end of apartheid in 1994 that saw some 600,000 teachers, nurses and other civil servants walk off the job on June 1 to push for a 12 per cent pay hike.

They later reduced their demand to 9 percent. The government -- with a wary eye on rising inflation pressures -- has stood firm at 7.5 per cent.

''The majority of the unions are expected to suspend the strike because the lion's share has been carried by the teachers. School holidays have started,'' one union official told the Business Day.

Cracks started to emerge after some teacher unions said they would pull out because schools were on holiday.

Patrick Craven, the spokesman at COSATU, the country's umbrella labour federation, declined to give any further information when reached by Reuters.

The strike underscored stark differences between the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and its labour allies, who blame the former liberation movement for abandoning the poor through its pro-business economic policies.

Angry union members marched through major cities in demonstrations of labour's power, while many schools closed due to teacher walkouts and public hospitals operated with skeleton staffing, turning all but the most serious cases away.

REUTERS SLBHT1302