SALGA tables offer for municipal employees

During the opening round of negotiations, the South African Local Government Association (SALGA), acting on behalf of the City of Cape Town and 277 municipalities country-wide, tabled its offer for salary and wage increases for municipal employees. Read more below:

Despite the negotiations taking place during extremely challenging times, particularly for municipalities, we remain hopeful of a fruitful and speedy outcome. We remain optimistic about the progress the negotiations have made so far and the positive spirit the unions have displayed. 

Wage and salary increases

SALGA's offer of 4,4% is for year one (2015/2016) and is linked to inflation. For years two and three, SALGA has offered an inflation-related increase, plus an additional 0,25. SALGA has made this offer by being mindful of the impact that additional annual notch increases have on the salary budgets of municipalities.

Other issues to be addressed

Together with the salary and wage increases, there are other issues which will have to receive attention during these negotiations, such as the union demand for increase in the minimum wage and increase in the medical aid contribution rate and homeowner and rental allowances.

SALGA has indicated upfront that these demands will add an unnecessary burden on the budgets of municipalities and will impact negatively on service delivery obligations of municipalities.

In considering our offer, SALGA took into account a number of factors which include the critical constitutional mandate of municipalities to deliver services, the recent budget policy pronouncements by the Minister of Finance around the need to contain wage increases, changing the collective bargaining landscape, recent labour law amendments, benefits of interest-based bargaining coupled with a holistic/ mutual gains approach to negotiations, benefits of a multi-year agreement as opposed to a single year agreement, affordable and sustainable increases given the degenerating financial state of municipalities, the country's macro-economic policy, and the need to match salary increases to improvements of levels of service delivery.

Statement issued by Councillor Xanthea Limberg, Mayoral Committee Member for Corporate Services, City of Cape Town, March 6 2015

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