By Peroshni Govender
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's government and unions are facing increased pressure to end a nearly week-long state workers' strike from a public angry at the mounting impact the stoppage has had on the poor.
The strike by about 1.3 million state workers including nurses, teachers and clerks, has shut schools, delayed treatment at hospitals and the delivery of other services to those who have no other alternative than seek government help.
Some HIV-infected people have been unable to receive the daily cocktail of medication that keeps them alive; pregnant mothers have been turned away from public hospitals and the working poor are having to stay at home to take care of children who would normally be in school.
"Teachers should know better. It's the children who will have to suffer and that damage cannot be repaired whether teachers get their increases or not," said James Langa, a parent from Soweto, a sprawling township outside Johannesburg.
In what has become a daily occurrence, strikers have blocked patients from entering hospitals, assaulted co-workers trying to break through picket lines and abused children showing up to schools hoping there will be classes.
"What they are doing to ordinary people is unfair," said a caller on a popular radio programme.
Talks between the government and the unions are unlikely to take place until after President Jacob Zuma returns from a trip to China that ends on Thursday.
UNIONS
The unions have tried to win support by saying top level bureaucrats had lavish lives and the state should be able to afford wage raises because it has more than enough money to bail out its corporate partners.
"The government ministers who deny workers their meagre wage increase have spent millions of rand on luxury vehicles and are living caviar lifestyles at the expense of the poor majority that is dependent of government service," said a statement by the NEHAWU union representing education and healthcare workers.
While salaries may be considered high at the top of the government pay-scale, mid-level state workers make about 40 percent more a month than the average working South African.
Richer South Africans, who send their children to schools where teachers have not walked off the job and can seek treatment at private hospitals, have mostly been unaffected by the strike.
Market players said it has had no great impact on daily rand and bond trading but they see a strike that extends into September hurting sentiment and raising worries about the costs to businesses coming from decreased productivity and paperwork delays at government agencies.
One newspaper said it might be costing the country about 1 billion rand (87 million pounds) a day.
The strike will add to worries about prospects for growth as Africa's largest economy slowed more than expected in the second quarter of 2010 as mining contracted while expansion in manufacturing was lower than before.
Zuma's ruling African National Congress government said it could not afford workers' demand of an 8.6 percent wage rise, more than double the inflation rate, and 1,000 rand ($137.1) a month as a housing allowance.
Any agreement to end the dispute is likely to swell state spending by about 1 to 2 percent, forcing the government to find new funds just as it tries to bring down a deficit totalling 6.7 percent of gross domestic product.
South Africa's National Union of Mineworkers said members at a Rio-Tinto-BHP Billiton joint venture will vote on a strike after the company failed to meet wage demands.
(Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Alison Williams)