SAMWU Rejects yet another Ridiculous Offer from SALGA
28 May 2015
The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (SAMWU) has spent the last 3 days in what we thought would be wage and salary negotiations with SALGA from the 26th to the 28th May 2015. We are however disappointed that in these round of negotiations SALGA had been locked in their own caucus, and holidaying in Cape Town at the expense of municipal workers. We have only seen them on the last day of negotiations wherein they have come and presented yet another ridiculous offer.
We have spent the last 3 days only for SALGA to tell us that they have revised their offer by 0.4% taking their offer in this round of negotiations to 5.9%. This, despite the fact that we had significantly revised our demand from 15% to 11%. SALGA still insists on a 3 year agreement which includes their laughable 0.4% movement and CPI plus 0.25% for the remaining two years of the agreement.
SAMWU insists on a single year agreement and would only entertain a multiyear agreement only if the offer from SALGA is enticing for us noting that their current offer is way below our demands. SALGA further insists on imposing the service charter on us, we reject this attempt as our members has not been properly consulted, we maintain that we will only entertain this charter of their of theirs once issues of bread and butter for our members have been addressed.
According to SALGA’s proposal, the minimum wage in the sector would be R5 953 and would increase by 0.25% in the 2 years of the proposed agreement. This represents no movement as this is a mere extension of their proposed agreement. Our members have mandated us to demand a minimum wage of R7 500 in the sector. The country’s municipal workers are struggling and failing to live in dignity as a result of the slave wages that SALGA is paying them, yet SALGA is proposing a R687 housing subsidy.
This would only be applicable to workers who would be in a position to produce evidence that they are currently servicing a bond. Our demand is an across the board housing allowance for all workers, we believe that this will address the issue of accessing dignified dignity for our members.
Guided by our May Special NEC, we are rejecting the latest offer as presented by SALGA, we believe that SALGA is too far from our demands and as such deserve no entertainment from SAMWU. SALGA has failed to ensure that we conclude this round of negotiations, in fact this has been a waste of our time and workers’ money as there has been no proposal that will have real gains for our members.
We are negotiation with junior officials, people who have no authority to make any decisions. Negotiations with SALGA will not produce any results until such a time that SALGA’s principals who are receiving highly inflated salaries are present in the negotiations. This round has collapsed as there has been no real proposal with real gains that can be taken to our members.
Statement issued by Walter Theledi, SAMWU General Secretary, May 28 2015
