Salary and Wage Negotiations with SALGA on the Brink of Collapsing 

26 May 2015

The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (SAMWU) fears that the third round of salary and wage negotiations with SALGA would collapse. The third round of negotiations is currently taking place from the26th to the 28th May.

We were shocked this morning when in opening negotiations SALGA indicated that workers would only get an increment linked to their performance, this despite the fact that local government unions have no performance agreement with SALGA.

We value the service that is being delivered by municipalities and believe that they should be of quality.

We have always, and continue to encourage our members to be as productive as they can be while executing their duties. However linking our members’ increments to performance is impractical as there is no scope or agreement between parties about the performance and our members continue to work tirelessly in line with their job descriptions as part of their employment contract in municipalities.

We are opposed to this proposal as it would disadvantage our members particularly in some municipalities which are not quipping our members with tools of trade so they could properly do their jobs. SALGA principals, who continue to run away from the negotiations are responsible for having put the country’s municipalities in ICU.

They have allowed a situation wherein municipalities continue to receive qualified audit reports and disclaimers. Municipalities have become cash cows for them and their friends at the compromise of service delivery, the core function of municipalities.

Municipalities continually fail to pay their workers on time, as we speak, workers in  Mafube Local Municipality in the Free State and Knysna Local Municipality in the Western Cape have not been paid their May salaries due to some fellows in senior management not doing their work.

We firmly believe that this is an attempt by SALGA to bully unions into signing the services charter which we have clearly indicated that we will not entertain it until such a time that our members have been properly consulted and the current salary and wage negotiations have been concluded.

SALGA should not test our patience, we cannot be dragged to meetings with them while they know very well that their intention is to prolong the negotiations for whatever interest they have.

We are beginning to lose trust in SALGA’s negotiating team and believe that as a result of them working unsupervised they would not be able to conclude the negotiations, this is why we argue that SALGA principals should be involved in negotiations to provide direction to these officials of theirs.

SAMWU remains committed to the completion of these negotiations, this can however only be achieved if SALGA does its part.

SALGA wake up smell the coffee and realize that workers are looking for a decent increase not shifting of goal posts.

SAMWU Disgusted by Municipalities’ Failure to Pay Workers

26 May 2015

The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (SAMWU) has learnt with utter disgust that several municipalities in the Eastern Cape, Free State and Western Cape have failed to pay their employees on time yet again as a result of municipalities’ failure to ensure that municipal management do their jobs.

Our members from several municipalities including Ikhwezi Municipality, Mafube Municipality and Knysna Municipality have indicated that they have not been paid their May salaries which are not two days in arrears. This happens while salary and wage negotiations between us and SALGA are continuing . Municipalities’ failure to honour their contractual agreements with members is worrisome noting that workers will not be able to service their debts on time with the salve wage that SALGA continues to pay them. Children would starve because their parents who are municipal workers have not been paid by municipalities.

The country’s municipalities have become a breeding ground for corruption, nepotism and financial mismanagement. The SALGA principals who are charged with ensuring the stability and viability of municipalities have failed to ensure the smooth running of the country’s municipalities but have rather opted to ensuring that their friends continue to receive lucrative tenders from municipalities. Despite SALGA’s failure to ensure that municipalities become viable and self-sustaining, the institution’s CEO Xolile George receives a salary of R3.8 million while his employers have just received a salary increase of over R60 000 which is way more than municipal workers’ annual salary. It is for this reason that SALGA principals are scared of coming to the negotiating table because they would have difficulty justifying why they want to give municipal workers when their salary increases are more than the annual salaries of municipal workers.

It is therefore disturbing and utterly disgusting that SALGA would want to speak of service charter and salary increment that is linked to performance while our members are demoralised and de-motivated as a result of not receiving their salaries. Surely SALGA does not understand the pressures endured by municipal workers, after all how can they when they are swimming in pools of money while our members continue to live in the perpetual cycle of poverty.  

Just as the last NEC had pronounced, municipalities have started following the line of City of Tshwane in increasing rates and tariffs way over inflation, with City of Johannesburg increasing its rates with over 10%. Of great concern is that municipalities do not allow their employees to owe them a single cent towards rates and tariffs and as such with the negative salary increase proposed by SALGA municipal workers stand to lose way more. To make matters worse, Eskom has requested a tariff hike of 23.5%.

SALGA needs to start taking municipal workers serious, they need to ensure their wellbeing, after all this is one way of increasing their productivity as a happy employee is a productive employee. We therefore cannot be talking of service charter and performance based increments when issues of bread and butter for our members have not been addressed. It is easy for them to speak of performance because their salaries are highly inflated for literally doing nothing.s We will ensure that in this round of negotiations we pressure on SALGA to commit to ensuring that its members (municipalities) pay our members timeously.

Statements issued by Papikie Mohale, SAMWU national media officer, May 26 201