Pretoria - The City of Tshwane and the two unions, the SA Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) and Independent Municipal and Allied Union (Imatu) will have to wait a few more days to know their fate.
The metro and the unions met the Local Government Collective Bargaining Council on Wednesday to reach a solution on whether the striking municipal workers should get their pay increase.
The employees have been striking for nearly five weeks in demand of a 5.4% pay increase while the metro has cried bankruptcy. The municipality sought an exemption for proposed pay increases that was heard by senior commissioner Eleanor Hambidge on Wednesday. However, according to the municipality’s chief of staff, Jordan Griffiths, both the union and city were still waiting for the judgment which would be delivered within 30 days from the date of application. Griffiths said the metro applied for the exemption on August 10 this year.
“This means the judgment would be due by September 9,” he said.
Samwu provincial secretary Mpho Tladinyane confirmed the union was also waiting. “We are waiting for the commissioner to issue an award,” Tladinyane said.
Although there is no telling what the commissioner will decide, Pretoria News can reveal that Samwu is not backing down on the pay increase.
The union’s general secretary, Dumisane Magagula, said earlier: “Our members on the ground are failing to catch up with the cost of living as a result of the city denying them their salary and wage increases. Our focus is on ensuring that workers receive their increases, nothing else.”
Samwu also warned that it would be approaching the courts over the city’s decision to withhold the salaries of the 319 striking employees.
Tshwane mayor Cilliers Brink reiterated this week that the city could not afford pay increases.
He said it was improbable that a deal could be negotiated with Samwu because its position on no wage increases was unlikely to change.
“We can't tell the bargaining council we don't have the money and then we say, ‘oh no, we do have the money’. The objective fact is the objective fact, we wouldn't want to undermine that process. We respect the bargaining council; we respect the collective agreement.”
Brink added: “The underlying dispute is about salary increases. The council has said we cannot afford it, we need to apply for an exemption. We, at the bargaining council, have made our case. We should have a result at the end of September.”
Pretoria News