SAMWU welcomes COGTA Minister’s commitment for engagement
15 December 2015
The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (SAMWU) welcomes the commitment by the newly appointed Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), David Van Rooyen for engagement with organised labour. In his first media briefing the Minister has set a high tone for his department in terms of his plans, we however hope that this will not be all talk and will be seeking action to that effect.
When the environment for engagement between ourselves and the Minister materialises, we will take numerous issues which we will need speedily resolution to. Top on our agenda will be the immediate intervention by the Minister at the Metsimaholo Municipality in the Free State. Workers have been illegally dismissed by the municipal management on the basis of an invalid court order. Despite this, there are numerous council resolutions that workers should be reinstated yet municipal management has refused to implement such resolutions.
We need the Minister to come up with ways in which he will deal with management that defies council resolutions. We need to also find ways on how the ministry would intervene when Mayors, Municipal Managers and Senior Managers are working against municipal workers and unions thus undermining the country’s labour laws and collective bargaining.
Minister Van Rooyen should as a matter of urgency meet with his predecessor and successor Minister Pravin Gordhan on how the two departments will work together to ensure local government is prioritised in terms of the Division of Revenue Act. It can’t be that the country’s 278 municipalities are expected to deliver basic services to over 50 million South Africans on a shoe string budget. We will be urging the Minister to demand a sizable increase to Local Government in the upcoming budget speech.
During the media briefing, the minister promised to implement the back to basic approach. We would like to give the Minister our version of back to basics. To us this means doing away with the tendering systems and casualization of workers in municipalities, it means ensuring that all municipal services are rendered by people who are permanently employed by municipalities. We will therefore we demanding that the Minister will ensure that all municipalities stop the use of EPWP for the delivery of services as this exploits workers. We want the minister to ensure that being a municipal worker is fashionable.
There is a serious need for engagements between ourselves as one of the largest stakeholders and the largest trade union in the sector, and COGTA on the role of municipalities. We firmly believe that COGTA should work hand in hand with other department to ensure proportion of Local Economic Development so to reduce the high and unacceptable levels of unemployment and poverty in our communities. We further need to engage the minister on how municipal workers can be remunerated better for the work that they do, these are the people who are at the who are at the forefront of service delivery and as such should be remunerated better.
We need the Minister to work with us to ensure that municipalities are financially sound and viable. We are pleased that the Minister has further committed to working with municipalities which owe Eskom. Our view is that the Minister should not allow National Treasury to withhold funds to municipalities as this will further compound municipalities’ financial woes.
We will further we canvassing the Minister to also push for the abolishing of provinces as this sphere of government has become irrelevant as was a political compromise, a compromise of uniting the country which has since been achieved. This sphere of government has become a consumer of public funds which should be directed to local government for the strengthening of service delivery.
Lastly, we wish the Minister well in this newly found responsibilities and trust that our working relations with him will be cordial and in the interest of the delivery of services and that of municipal workers.
Issued by Sizwe Pamla, National Spokesperson, COSATU, 15 December 2015
