SAMWU stands in solidarity with POPCRU as they embark on a national march
19 September 2022
SAMWU stands in solidarity with POPCRU as they embark on a national march
The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (SAMWU) stands in solidarity with our sister union the Police Prisons and Civil Rights Union (POPCRU) who will be embarking on a nationwide march on the 20th of September at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.
Our support to the POPCRU march premises from “an injury to one, is an injury to all” principle which all unions and the working class prescribe to. We are further extending our solidarity with POPCRU and its members as we have seen that government has taken a conscious and deliberate decision to attack and undermine collective bargaining in the country.
As SAMWU, we are of the view that the attack on collective bargaining is not only an attack to all workers in the public sector but would rather encourage employers in the private sector to follow suit. We have noted with great agitation that the National Treasury is the chief driver of the attack on collective bargaining, which is a product of the blood and sweat our forebearers.
The current salary and wage negotiations in the public sector have proven that government does not take workers serious. These workers are on a daily basis ensuring that South Africans receive services yet when it comes to remunerating them properly, government redirects the money to pay political office bearers who are already overpaid and overlooking the real workers who are doing the actual work.
If workers do not stand up to the tactics by the government, collective bargaining will collapse as we know it. There will be no more salary and wage negotiations in the sector, but rather the National Treasury will just say to unions and workers that they have an x amount of money and workers should see how they share that money. This is already the route that public sector salary and wage negotiations are currently going.
Workers across all sectors in the country have felt the brunt of the austerity measures that have been taken by the government, resulting in many funded vacancies not being filled while in the local government sector, the same is done wherein municipalities use the services of EPWP workers instead of filling those vacancies or making EPWP workers permanent employees who are directly and permanently employed by municipalities.
As SAMWU, we understand the plight affecting workers who are organized by POPCRU. We further understand the impact of the failure by the government to implement the salary and wage collective agreement for public sector workers in 2020. We further understand the precedence that this will create not only in the public sector but across all sectors within the South African economy.
We, therefore, support POPCRU and the demands that they will be presenting when they march to the Union Budlings which includes;
• Full implementation of the PSCBC Resolution 1 of 2018.
• The reversal of the austerity measures taken by the government.
• The fight against violent crimes in South Africa
• Access to portions of pension funds before retirement.
• Non-implementation of signed collective agreements.
• Failure by the employer to give workers adequate protective clothing.
• Police killings.
In extending solidarity with POPCRU and its members when they march, we further urge our members who are within the vicinity of the march to join fellow workers on this important demonstration. “an injury to one, is an injury to all”.
Issued by SAMWU Secretariat
Dumisane Magagula
General Secretary
076 580 4029
Or
Papikie Mohale
National Media Officer
073 710 0356