Government agreed to table a new offer when it did an about-turn after saying there would be a 0% wage hike due to lack of money from its purse.
Workers said that labour had agreed to give the independent mediators more time while government forged ahead with tabling a new offer.
This is a last-ditch attempt by the Public Servants Association and government to find each after the conciliation process deadlocked.
The association said South Africans could not afford to wait any longer for its citizens to be vaccinated.
Last year, the Labour Court declared as unconstitutional and invalid a 2018 wage agreement after Treasury said it never gave the green light for the deal to be sealed.
The Department of Public Service and Administration and Treasury said they could not afford the hikes, which were agreed upon back in 2018, stating repeatedly that this would cost over R30 billion.
COVID-19 and the lockdown have crushed many companies, leaving the already battered economy in a difficult position to recover.
The trade unions have stopped short of calling Mboweni a liar, saying that his assurances that labour was being consulted about the three-year wage freezes were untrue.
The PSA represents thousands of educators and administrative staff in schools across the country.
Public service workers woke up to their regular salary payments on 15 April in direct contravention of a 2018 agreement to increase wages.
Government said this was part of plans to slash the public sector wage bill by R160 billion in the next three years.
The PSA is one of the country’s largest public service unions with over 240,000 members.
The government was on a drive to reduce the number of public servants through early retirement offers, but more recently Treasury suggested about 10% could be cut from workers’ salaries.
Minister Senzo Mchunu told parliament during his budget vote this week that his department would save R20 billion if 30,000 workers in the public sector took early pension payout.
The union, which represents thousands of public servants, said the State Attorney's office in Johannesburg was in a hazardous condition following the leak of raw sewage.
The union says after extensive consultations, members in many provinces have given a green light to sign the settlement agreement.
On Monday, workers affiliated to the PSA returned to work as the union accepted the revenue service’s offer of an 8% salary hike for the next 12 months and 2% above CPI for the next two years.
Last week, various branches at the tax collection agency were shut down, with employees calling for an 11.4% increase.
