SALGA Claims Strides Made In Municipal Wage Talks, But SAMWU Denies It

The SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) said yesterday that there has been no movement from the employer on a salary increase demand by the country’s municipal workers. On Friday, Samwu, which represents 160,000 workers, concluded the last round of salary negotiations with the employer body, the SA Local Government Association (Salga) in the SA Local Government Bargaining Council.

Samwu had demanded a one-year wage increase of R4,000 per month, a R3,500 housing agreement, an 80% employer medical aid contribution, six months’ paid maternity leave and one month paid paternity leave. Salga has offered a 2.8% salary increase. Salga said the parties have agreed to extend the negotiations beyond the final round to allow the designated facilitator of the negotiations to formulate a detailed proposal to cover all the areas that are a subject matter of negotiations. They went on to say that proposals developed by negotiations facilitators are very often effective instruments for facilitating an agreement when parties have mandated positions that are difficult to reconcile, as this has been the case with current negotiations, as with similar negotiations processes across the public sector. However, Samwu deputy general secretary Dumisane Magagula said it rejected the offer by Salga.