Council agrees to pay up
Council has agreed to pay more than R200-million to settle a labour dispute with unions.
eTHEKWINI council has agreed to pay a total of R201 938 888 million to settle the dispute over the Divisional Conditions of Service between the municipality and labour unions.
At a full council meeting this week, councillors welcomed the settlement of the dispute and signed an agreement with the South African Municipal Workers Union and the Independent Municipal Allied Trade Union.
Council ratified the settlement approved by Exco last week. An amount of R120 million will be paid in M from savings in the 2013/14 financial year, and the balance will be paid by December 2014.
Mayor James Nxumalo said, “This is a case that required us to wait for a court judgment, and we have thus complied with the court ruling.” Nxumalo further stated that the issue should not be politicised as it affected the whole Council.
The dispute dates back to 2007 when 46 local authorities were merged to form eThekwini. Each local authority had its own conditions of service and employees were paid on different pay structures. In the formation of eThekwini, some employees lost benefits while others received payments they were not entitled to.
The unions took the municipality to court and the matter was heard in the Supreme Court of Appeal in September last year. The court declared eThekwini’s new divisional conditions of service null and void and the municipality had to revert to the conditions of service that were in place before 2007.
