Salga warns municipality again to refrain from entertaining municipal upgrade to level 5
The SA Local Government Association warned the Steve Tshwete council and administration once again on Wednesday, that neither council nor the administration has the authority to upgrade the municipality from a level 4 to a level 5 institution.
Salga advised the municipality “to ensure it does not enter into any agreement that will compromise the municipality negatively”.
Salga, however, got it wrong “noting that municipal employees were on strike for about four weeks,” when in fact the workers have been on strike for two months, with workers agreeing to return to work today, after reaching an agreement that salaries will be benchmarked according to the highest-paid local municipalities countrywide.
Workers will also receive back pay for two years in three eight-month instalments.
Striking employees demanded that the municipality be upgraded to a level 5 institution on the back of a 2017 draft report by the 21st Century, mandating an upgrade.
A further decision was reached at the municipal Local Labour Forum that the upgrade should be implemented.
Salga, however, says the matter of a municipal upgrade “does not fall within the scope of the LLM, but lies with the Central Bargaining Council, to which outgoing council referred the matter to for negotiations in October.
The wage curve has been developed and adopted by the parties of the SALGBC and the implementation measures became a subject matter for negotiations in 2019 at the Central Council.
In November 2019, South African Municipal Workers’ Union (SAMWU) submitted a proposal that deviated from the 21st Century report which led to Independent Municipal and Allied Trade Union (IMATU) declaring a dispute against SALGA.
The dispute was heard by a commissioner who ruled that the dispute was premature, and directed parties to return to the negotiation table.
With the devastating effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown, negotiations stalled, and the standing wage collective agreement reached the last year of implementation on 30 June 2021.
With the worsened financial position of municipalities, mainly as an effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, parties after several rounds of negotiations reached an agreement through the acceptance of a conciliator’s proposal.
With the additional financial exposure to municipalities, parties did not address the matter of the categorization and wage curve.