Tensions high in employer, employee ‘war’
“We are angered by the attitude of the Tshwane administrators who have disregarded collective agreements signed between the employer and labour,” said Samwu Tshwane regional secretary Mpho Tladinyane.
The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) this week said it was ready to defend workers’ gains after the Tshwane metro has declared “war” against them.
“We are angered by the attitude of the Tshwane administrators who have disregarded collective agreements signed between the employer and labour,” said Samwu Tshwane regional secretary Mpho Tladinyane.
Tladinyane said this had “provoked” municipal workers.
His comments came after municipal workers broke into and vandalised Tshwane House in the Pretoria CBD on Tuesday. Samwu members also emptied wheelie bins and trashed the CBD streets with litter.
The protest action was due to the implementation of an annual wage increase of 6.25% and the implementation of a benchmarking collective agreement not being concluded.
The Tshwane metro cited financial losses due to less revenue collection during Covid-19 as the reason for being unable to reach the agreed-upon deal with unions.
“In the first meeting after their appointment, the administrators committed to implementing all signed collective agreements,” said Tladinyane.
“On 16 July, the administrators confirmed that among other commitments, the metro will pay the salary increase due to workers.
“An instruction was issued to officials to load money for payment. It is unfortunate that on Monday, administrators took a unilateral decision to reverse such payments.”
He said the metro also entered into a collective agreement with labour on in November, last year, to introduce a new grading scale.
“This was after Cogta approved that the metro be upgraded from category 9 to category 10.”
He said, however, the metro requested labour to postpone the implementation by nine months, in the interest of labour stability and sound labour relations in the metro.
“We agreed to the postponement and urged our members to allow metro management time to realign their budget.”
“It, however, appears that the administrators have an appetite to sabotage collective agreements while senior managers continue to enjoy benefits and they were paid all their monies amounting to millions of rands.”
Tladinyane said Samwu was also aware that the metro had budgeted an approved excess amount of R1.3-billion.
“That would be enough to pay workers what is due to them.”
He said Samwu has also since given administrators ultimatums to confirm that all collective agreements will be respected and implemented.
“They have until 12:00 on 22 July to assure workers that all will be covered on 24 July.”
Tladinyane said municipal workers had been given two options, “either die of poverty or coronavirus”.
“We have chosen none of the two and as such, we will fight with our masks on to ensure that we get what is due to us.
“Failure to honour all collective agreements in the metro would be a declaration of war; war that municipal workers are ready to fight in defending collective bargaining and their gains.
“The metro should not test us; if it is a war that the administrators want, municipal workers will respond appropriately,” said Tladinyane.
READ MORE: Service delivery impacted as protesting workers trash Tshwane headquarters
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