Uproar in 19 sectors as CoLA talks stalled
MANZINI - There is an uproar within the 19 sectors, where CoLA is discussed by wages councils, as sittings have been stalled over the non-payment of 2023 sitting allowances.
According to a source close to the matter, some of the wages councils should start the talks on cost-ofliving adjustment (CoLA) and other workers’ welfare issues as early as February, as the date of implementing salary adjustments is March 1 every year.
The source said other sectors usually started the negotiations later, as the implementation date or financial year started on April 1 every year.
Allowances
However, according to the source, none of the 19 wages councils have met at the roundtable this year. This, the source said, was because government, in particular, the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, had not paid the wages councils’ last year’s sitting allowances.
He said usually, the wages councils would meet and once a collective agreement had been reached, the secretariat would collect data regarding how many sittings they had and submit to the ministry.
However, the source highlighted that this year, the situation was a bit tricky, as the wages councils were sitting during the same period and collecting the necessary data to file a claim was a challenge.
As a result, he said some of the secretariats submitted the claims late. However, the source was quick to mention that this could not be used as an excuse for the delay in the payment of the allowances. He said this was because, if the ministry had set aside a budget for the wages councils’ allowances, it would pay immediately after receiving a claim.
When the source was asked what government’s reason for the delay was, he alleged that the ministry was complaining about minimal budget.
“In fact, sometimes it would tell us that it was still mobilising funds to pay the allowances, which tells us that it does not have the money,” the source said.
Stalled
Following the non-payment of the allowances, which stalled the wages councils’ sittings for the 2024/25 financial year, the source said the concerned and frustrated workers had been calling the relevant structures of the various trade unions, which represented them in the negotiations, for updates. He said the workers were becoming impatient and some of them had even suggested that they should meet to discuss the matter.
The source said the workers’ concern was that they noted that last year, the implementation dates for the CoLA were not the first day of the sectors’ financial year, which is mostly March 1 or April 1. Instead, he said the salary adjustments date of implementation was the day when the collective agreement was reached and signed, yet all along, even if the negotiations would drag until August, the increment would be backdated to the first day of the sectors’ financial year.
“Therefore, they know that if the wages councils’ sittings continue to delay, it will affect their pockets, as there will be no back pay, thus the uproar,” the insider said.
This was confirmed by the Amalgamated Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (ATUSWA) Secretary General, Wander Mkhonza, who said the delay in having the wages councils also affected sectors which made a two-year agreement last year, like the textile and apparel sector.
He said the textile and apparel sector was supposed to get their CoLA of up to 12 per cent on March 1, 2024, as this was agreed upon during last year’s negotiations. However, he said the workers would not benefit, pending a meeting of the Textile and Apparel Sector Wages Council to rectify the decisions that had been already taken.
The unionists said they had been communicating with government to call the wages council meeting, at least to confirm the decisions which were taken last year, but it failed as it had not paid the allowances. On top of that, Mkhonza and other unionists, who also sit at the wages council, said for the sake of the workers they represented, they informed government that they were willing to sit at the roundtable, even though it had not paid the sitting allowances for the previous year. However, they alleged that they learnt that even if the meetings could be called, they would not form a quorum if the independent members of the councils had not been paid.
They said they would continue to monitor the situation, with the hope that on the other hand, government would be working on paying the sitting allowances, because they might not be able to control the workers later on.
Payments
Meanwhile, the Principal Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, Makhosini Mndawe, said as a ministry, they were aware of the issue of outstanding payments for the wages council members.
“We are currently working on it. We had difficulties due to budgetary constraints, hence the delays,” the PS said.
He further said they had managed to recover some funding and were currently processing payments of the allowances for the wages council members.
The PS also added that the inconvenience caused to the members of the wages councils was regretted, as it was occasioned by issues beyond the ministry’s control.