Workers in Estcourt face salary freeze

Municipality battles with big wage bill

WORKERS at Inkosi Langalibalele Municipality (Estcourt) are likely to face a salary freeze as the council grapples with a large wage bill threatening its survival.

Unions are leading negotiations with the council in a bid to prevent retrenchments and financial collapse of the council. The municipality, which was placed under administration by the department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, previously informed the unions it needed to reduce its staff complement by 41%.

A source in the council aware of the negotiations and a union leader detailed the proposals that would be presented to the municipality.

“The offer is to freeze the salaries of the employees who are earning more than R6 000. The employer is applying for an exemption on the salary increment for workers above this bracket.

“We felt those earning below R6000 should be exempted because of the cost of living,” the source said.

The council, he said, needed to save R4 million a month on its salary bill.

He said the amalgamation of Imbabazane and Estcourt to form Inkosi Langalibalele Municipality was the source of the financial problems.

Imbabazane was a small municipality that survived on grants and its management had not followed the rules of governing as set up by local government policies, he said.

“For instance, their salaries: officers in Estcourt were earning around R10000 a month and those in Imbabazane were at R21 000 a month. Managers in Estcourt were at R16 000 a month and those in Imbabazane are at R35 000.

“This meant the salaries of those from Estcourt must be increased and that added R1.9m to the salary bill; the security bill went from R2m a year to almost R4m a month,” said the source.

Provincial secretary of the South African Municipal Workers’ Union Jaycee Ncanana said its focus was on assisting the municipality to achieve its savings target while not negatively affecting their members.

“We’re looking at the workers who had benefited from parity (salary adjustments), to say they should not get an increment.”

He said workers who benefited could be subjected to this arrangement for the next three years or until their colleagues “catch up” with them.

Ncanana said this proposal would be refined and tabled by June 3.

Attempts to speak to the mayor were unsuccessful.