Samwu rejects wage offer
JOBURG - The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) has rejected the latest wage and salary offer presented by South African Local Government Association (Salga) at the South African Local Government Bargaining Council (SALGBC) in the second round of negotiations.
The negotiations were concluded on 23 April after Salga had revised its previous offer of 4.4 percent increase to 5.4 percent. Samwu spokesperson Papikie Mohale said, “We reject this ridiculous offer as it is still way below our demands, there has been no real movement on the part of Salga.”
Mohale said Salga had not shown commitment to negotiate in good faith, instead they have been dragging their feet to the negotiating table. He said, “We want to ensure that a new agreement is reached before the current main collective agreement lapses, however, this can only be done if there is commitment from both sides of the table.”
Mohale said it seemed as though Salga was only interested in ensuring that unions commit to the signing of the Service Charter while neglecting the bread and butter issues of union members.
“Our mandate is for a single year agreement, yet Salga continues to want to ensure that workers are tied to a three-year agreement which has no real gain or benefit for [workers],” he said.
Mohale stated that the employer had further proposed that the minimum wage in the sector be R5 925, which the union believed was way too little to address the dire financial strain that municipal workers continue to face, a situation which is not of their own making.
Mohale said that Salga had also not moved on the union’s demand of an across the board housing allowance for all municipal employees and insisted on giving housing allowances to those who can produce evidence that they have a current bond with a financial institution. “Our argument is that a housing allowance should be extended to all employees as a result of the ‘slave wages’ that Salga gives to its employees,” he said.
The third round of negotiations will be held from 18 and 19 May. Samwu urged Salga to negotiate with the union in ‘good faith’ and show the commitment that they want an agreement reached before the current main collective agreement expires.
“We will also be using the same approach in negotiations with Water and Sanitation Services South Africa and Water Boards in their respective negotiations,” Mohale concluded.
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