South Africa's trade unions Monday suspended a three-week-old strike by hundreds of thousands of government workers that had shuttered schools and hamstrung ambitious new efforts to expand urgently needed medical services in the region's richest but most inequitable economy. As rowdy striking teachers chanted just outside a news conference, labor leaders here said they had not yet accepted the government's offer, but would consult their members over the coming weeks and continue negotiating. The government has proposed a 7.5 percent pay raise that is double the rate of inflation, but short of the 8.6 percent unions had demanded. 'We are going to take what is on the table back to our members,' said Thobile Ntola, president of the South African Democratic Teachers Union, or SADTU, which represents about 230,000 teachers. But other union officials said they thought the strike was effectively over. Relative to inflation, the government's offer was significantly better than raises given over the last five years. Some strikers had begun returning to work in recent days. The wage gains are being weighed against the strike's toll. It has damaged health and public services -- for illnesses like AIDS and tuberculosis -- that are critical to millions of poor people, who cannot afford the private hospitals and schools that many middle-class people use. It has bitterly strained relations between Cosatu, the trade union federation, and its ally, the governing African National Congress. Ntola blamed the government, and President Jacob Zuma, who made a trade development visit to China in the midst of the strike, for the crippled public services. 'What has the president done?' he asked. 'He has left for China.' But the strike has also tarnished the reputation of the unions. Many critics and other South Africans saw workers as fighting for the interests of those who already have good jobs at the expense of the one-third of their countrymen who are out of work. The government has said new hiring might be frozen to help pay for the almost billion extra dollars it will cost the government to pay the increased salaries and benefits to 1.3 million workers. And there has been widespread intimidation of workers who did not strike. While insisting on the justness of the strike, Cosatu -- which represents 2 million union members -- condemned the violence and apologized Monday, just hours after the strike was suspended, to the more seriously injured nurse. There are deep divisions among strikers about what to do next. Many nurses and teachers from the biggest and most militant health and teachers unions are still insisting they will reject the deal now being offered. 