SAMWU statement on uMgeni municipal elections outcomes.

4 November 2021

SAMWU statement on uMgeni municipal elections outcomes.

The South African Municipal Workers’ Union in the KwaZulu Natal Province has learnt with great sadness and regret of an article in The Witness Newspaper titled “SAMWU welcomes DA” this with reference to the developments in the uMngeni Local Municipality which according to preliminary results shows that there will be change of governance in the municipality.

The title by the newspaper seeks to create an impression that SAMWU has been campaigning for the Democratic Allience (DA) and that the union is pleased with the elections outcomes in the municipality. We place it on record that as per our recently held Central Executive Committee (CEC) meeting and that of our federation COSATU, the union took a clear resolution that it will be supporting the ANC in these elections.

The preliminary results at the Umgeni Municipality do not translate into anything for workers to celebrate, if anything workers in the municipality are going to experience the ruthlessness and wrath of the DA as other workers have experienced in municipalities that are led by the DA such as Tshwane and City of Cape Town.

We know that the DA is anti-workers and collective bargaining. In their last Congress, they proposed that Collective Bargaining should be deregulated because according to them it is a barrier to job creation in the country. We have seen how workers have been treated in DA led municipalities wherein workers are dismissed and suspended without following due processes, we have also noted that none of the DA led municipalities have implemented the recently concluded salary and wage collective agreement in the South African Local Government association (SALGBC).

We cannot therefore as a union celebrate when we are faced with the prospects of an onslaught against collective bargaining. To make matters worse, even before the first Council meeting is held to elect the new political leadership in the municipality, the DA has already said that they are going to skills audit workers in the municipality. We should not be misunderstood to be saying that there should be no skills audit, our argument is however based on the fact that this anticipated audit will result in the changes of conditions of service for municipal workers, a change that the DA cannot unilaterally make without consultation of workers. Already the DA leadership is portraying the manner in which it will be running the municipality.

We once more stress that we have no relationship with the DA nor do we seek to forge one now. The only relationship that will exist in uMngeni Local Municipality will be purely employer-employee and nothing more. Workers will continue rendering their services as per their contracts of employment with the municipality, there is no need for us to even think of forging relations with an employer that is intent desperate on reversing the gains that have been made for workers throughout the years.

Issued by SAMWU KZN

Nokubonga Dinga
Provincial Secretary
(065 871 8434)

Or

Xolani Shinga
Deputy Provincial Secretary
(081 852 1821)