WATCH: Labour union demands Brink stop interfering in salary increase ruling

Representatives of the South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) protested inside the Tshwane Council chambers today, urging former mayor Cilliers Brink to stop ‘meddling’ when it comes to orders to pay backdated salary increases to metro workers.

This came after Brink called on the metro to appeal the SALGA Bargaining Council (SALGBC) ruling that compels it to implement long-outstanding salary increases.

Workers held placards reading ‘Brink and his DA cartel must fall’, calling his previous push to challenge the ruling ‘racist’ and an effort to ‘rob hardworking municipal workers’.

The current mayor, Dr Nasiphi Moya, told council that the metro will not appeal the October 31 SALGBC decision, which ordered the metro to pay as much as R1.6-billion in backpay dating back to 2021.

The ruling dismissed the metro’s application for exemption and gave the metro six months to comply.

Moya acknowledged that the salary payments will have a significant financial impact on the city, but said the administration is already engaging unions on a viable and sustainable way forward.

“Workers were treated unfairly and we will honour the decision by SALGA,” she said.

Moya added that had the previous DA-led coalition resolved the matter between 2021 and 2023, Tshwane could have settled the salary increases at less than R500-million.

“However, now the city must pay triple the amount,” she said.

According to Moya, the metro has been working to ensure implementation takes place ‘in a responsible and sustainable manner’.

She said constructive discussions with organised labour are underway to determine the most appropriate and financially prudent path.

“These engagements are progressing well and will guide a balanced solution that protects the city’s financial stability while meeting its obligations to employees. It is important that this process is allowed to run its course, as it will inform the final implementation plan,” she said.

However, the DA’s Chief Whip in Council, Jacqui Uys, warned the mayor to be ‘careful with numerics’.

“Mathematics is very important; the mayor was just saying amounts that do not correspond,” Uys said.

She added that whether the matter had been resolved in earlier years or not, the amount payable to workers would not have been R500-million, but likely more or even the same figure the metro is currently expected to pay.

Dumisane Magagula, general secretary of Samwu, said in a statement, Brink’s call for appeal was “a cynical move by the DA, as it is nothing less than a desperate, treasonous attempt to rule Tshwane from the grave, years after their catastrophic mismanagement ended”.

“The DA’s pretence of concern for the city’s budget rings hollow, as the current financial abyss in the City of Tshwane is the shameful and undeniable legacy of the instability, corruption, and catastrophic financial neglect that characterised the periods when the DA held political power,” Magagula said.

Magagula said that the union “reminds the public that this financial crisis was, in fact, manufactured under the DA administration, when they initially denied workers both the 3.5% (2021/22) and the subsequent 5.4% (2023/24) salary increases”.

“Their claim to champion financial health rings hollow when their own mismanagement created the budget deficits they now fraudulently use as an excuse to avoid paying workers their rightful dues. Furthermore, the DA’s suggestion that the binding SALGBC award is ‘flawed and ruinous’ is dishonest.”

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