Public sector workers threaten nationwide strike

Public sector workers in Swaziland have threatened to embark on a nationwide strike on Thursday to protest salary increases for members of parliament and cabinet ministers following a government challenge to the right of the Swaziland National Association of Civil Servants to exist as a union, South African news reports said on Wednesday. The daily, 'Business Day', said the action by public servants, nurses and teachers had been precipitated by a public servants strike in South Africa last week. Information Minister Mgwagwa Mdluli, himself a former executive of the association, said its "negligible" membership fell far short of a membership of at least one-fifth of the workforce of a represented industrial or public sector - the legal requirement for union recognition by the government. At the latest count, the newspaper said, about 17,000 public servants were employed in Swaliand.