SAMWU formally declares Dispute with SALGA

8 June 2015

The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (SAMWU) has formally declared a dispute with SALGA in relation to the salary and wage negotiations.

The dispute comes after three rounds of negotiations which were a fruitless exercise, a waste of our time and workers money. SALGA has not shown any commitment to having these negotiations completed before the current agreement lapses.

SAMWU has been dragged to meetings with SALGA under the auspice of negotiations while they knew very well that it was a disguise to take the army of tourists on holiday at great cost.

The deformed delegation of army of tourists led by the supposed chief negotiator, Rio Nolutshungu who has relegated himself to be a tour guide abstained from making any contact with organise labour only to come in the last hour of negotiations to present that they are willing to improve their ridiculous offer by 0.4%.

SALGA continues to undermine negotiation processes by bringing in junior officials as negotiators, officials who some are municipal workers themselves and stand to get bonuses for ensuring that  municipal workers get as little increase as possible.

They should be ashamed of themselves that they are selling out other municipal workers for the promise of bonuses and free holidays extended to them at the expense of the country’s municipal workers.

The declared dispute is a sign of the lack of leadership within SALGA, under the leadership of its CEO Xolile George whose salary is highly over inflated for literally doing nothing. It is for this reason that we were not surprised at the outcomes of the latest Auditor General’s report into the country’s municipalities wherein municipalities continued to perform badly under George’s watch. This and other issues being faced by municipalities will obviously not be resolved, so long as George is still at the helm of SALGA.

The matter has been referred for conciliation in the bargaining council. Any further negotiations with SALGA will be in the context of a dispute resolution. Should both parties fail to get a mutually beneficial solution we will then get a certificate of non-resolution which will lead to a protected full blown nationwide strike action.

This decision was not taken lightly, it was a painful one, bearing in mind the consequences of a strike action on our members and most importantly South Africans i.e no provisions of basic services such as electricity, water, sanitation, waste management and collection, grave digging and traffic control.

We have however been bulldozed in previous round negotiations and there has been no real movement from the employer particularly given our initial demand to where we are now, the presented offer has no real gains for our members.

SALGA simply does not care. This should send signals to other bargaining units which we are representing members such as Water Boards, we are not going to allow our members to be subjected to slave wages or sign an agreement that has no real gains for them.

Statement issued by Papikie Mohale, SAMWU National Media Officer, June 8 2015