Union aims to cripple councils

The South African Municipal Workers' Union will embark on a huge national strike on Monday, aiming to bring municipal services to a halt.

Samwu said yesterday its estimated 200000 members would bring all 262 municipalities and their enterprises in the country to a standstill.

The trade union declared a dispute with employer body the South African Local Government Association and issued a strike notice last Wednesday.

Samwu is demanding pay hikes of 18% and Salga is offering 6.08%.

Samwu spokesman Tahir Sema said the strike would go on indefinitely.

"As a union, we did not take the decision to strike lightly," Sema said.

"We discussed the decision at length and exhausted all avenues of bargaining available to us.

"We do feel that this dispute could have been resolved at the bargaining table if the employer had only been more understanding of workers' needs and difficulties when it comes to day-to-day living.

"The objective of this strike is to force the employer to revise its offer and give the workers a decent annual wage increase," he said.

Sema said services to be affected included municipal clinics, revenue collection, water distribution, electricity generation and distribution, refuse collection, metro police, maintenance of municipal properties and road maintenance.

He said emergency services would run on skeleton staffs as they were regarded as essential services dealing with matters of life and death.

Samwu members are known for causing a mess in cities when they go on strike.

Salga confirmed that it had received the strike notice, but said it could do nothing to avert the strike.

Acting Salga director of labour relations Johan van Zyl said the organisation could not meet the union's pay demand.

"According to our current budget, we cannot afford an increase of 18%," he said. "Our doors are open to the unions.

"We hope they will change their minds and come to the negotiation table."

The last time Samwu went on a national strike was in 2009, when it got a 12% pay rise.