‘DA wants to rule Tshwane from the grave’: Samwu

The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) has criticised the DA for calling on Tshwane to challenge a ruling that supported the payment of overdue salary increases with backpay.

Samwu said the DA was trying to “rule Tshwane from the grave”.

The DA urged the city to challenge a decision by the South African Local Government Bargaining Council (SALGBC) that workers must be paid their overdue salary increases.

The DA “falsely labels this binding award as ‘flawed and ruinous’, which is a declaration of war against the working class and a direct, contemptuous assault on the collective bargaining institutions of our democracy“, Samwu said.

The union said the DA created a financial crisis and now shifted the blame for Tshwane’s inability to make payments.

The city’s refusal to budget for the increase was deliberate, and it had the liquidity and increasing collection rates to justify paying the increase. “We do not believe the applicant’s [Tshwane] liquidity challenges,” Samwu said.

The SALGBC finding said Tshwane had failed to prove unaffordability and instead chosen to prioritise huge increases in non-essential expenditure, such as inflated contracted services.

Samwu said the commissioner had acknowledged the size of the payment but granted the city six months to manage the implementation of the 2021/2022 increase.

“We demand the immediate payment of workers’ 3.5% salary increases as per the SALGBC award and the unconditional reinstatement of 41 unfairly dismissed workers,” said the union.

DA Tshwane finance spokesperson Jacqui Uys said the city could face financial collapse if the ruling was not reviewed.

“If not taken on review, the decision will be paid for by residents in the form of deteriorating service delivery and infrastructure.”

Uys said the backdated increase would cost the city an estimated R1.4bn as a one-off payment, and an additional R400m annually would be required.

The labour court ruled in the city’s favour earlier this year in a separate dispute about 2023/2024 salary increases, which revealed that the SALGBC had concluded Tshwane could afford a 5.6% increase.

Uys said the same ruling by the labour court applied and that meant the city has strong grounds to seek a judicial review.

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