SAMWU Update on Salary and Wage Negotiations
22 July 2021
SAMWU Update on Salary and Wage Negotiations
The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (SAMWU) has on the 19th and 20th July 2021 participated in the Conciliation process under the auspices of the South African Local Government Local Government Bargaining Council (SALGBC).
The Conciliation process was embarked on following the decision by all parties in the SALGBC to declare separate dispute after rejecting the facilitator’s proposal which was issued as a means to bring together parties.
During the Conciliation, labour tried persuaded the employer, the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) to agree to a settlement agreement, however the employer presented their own sour proposal which had no substantive difference from the already rejected facilitator’s proposal and SALGA’s original position.
We also report to our members that we have received a letter from the SALGA CEO, Mr. Xolile George who has invited unions for a bilateral as a means of ending the impasse in the negotiations room. As SAMWU, we will be honouring the meeting invite and give SALGA the audience which they have requested.
We should however mention that the intervention which they seek now comes very late in the process. We have, in the early stages of these negotiations written to SALGA President Cllr Thembi Nkadimeng and Mr. George to request their presence in the negotiations.
We warned them that the lack of their presence in the negotiations will lead its collapse, and such has happened.
When meeting the SALGA, we will tell them that we are in this situation because of their own doing, they ignored our pleas for them to take these negotiations seriously.
We will also tell them municipal workers will this month not be receiving salary increases because of the stubbornness of their negotiation team.
Given the developments of the request by SALGA to seek bilateral meetings with unions, parties in the SALGBC have agreed that the Conciliation be extended to the 3rd and 4th August 2021.
Our meeting with SALGA political leadership should not be confused with us cozing up to the employer, we are only meeting them out of courtesy and to hear what it is that they want to do to ensure that municipal workers get decent salary increases. We will meet them with carrying the mandate that we have been given by our members.
Ends
Issued by SAMWU Secretariat