Wage talks leave licensing in limbo

Customers at the municipal vehicle registration and licensing department say they were left standing for hours in a queue yesterday morning after six cashiers simultaneously left their stations to attend a South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) meeting on salary negotiations.

Customer Zukisa Yam told the Daily Dispatch that about 12 people were in the queue when this happened and after having reported the problem, she claimed a manager told them there was nothing they could do about it since they had all left for a union meeting.

Buffalo City spokeswoman Bathandwa Diamond said: “The centre was open to serve consumers with a skeleton staff as it is a requirement that all offices that provide direct services to the public remain open and for there to be an arrangement for staff to rotate so that they can attend union meetings.”

Diamond said supervisors had been available to serve consumers.

Samwu general secretary Simon Mathe was at the Orient Theatre at 9am yesterday reporting back to members on the status of wage negotiations.

The union is currently in negotiations with the South African Local Government Association (Salga) on a proposed 15% wage increase for all municipal workers.

Salga has offered an across-the-board 7% salary and wage increase with effect from July 1. Samwu has rejected this.