Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)

Unions warn against avoiding pay raises

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TRADE unions representi­ng the country’s more than 260 000 municipal workers have warned the government against using the Covid-19 pandemic to avoid increasing salaries by 6.25% next month.

Cosatu affiliate the SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) said it was shocked by the move to invoke a clause of the 2018 agreement reached at the SA Local Government Bargaining Council (SALGBC) that allows municipali­ties to apply for an exemption if they are unable to honour it.

Samwu said a number of municipali­ties were processing their 2020-21 budgets and had already approved the salary increases.

“We do not expect any municipali­ty to fall into this trap of pitting workers against their employers. Municipal workers will not sit idle when their conditions of service are illegally tampered with,” the union cautioned.

The Independen­t Municipal and Allied Trade Union (Imatu) indicated that the parties to the SALGBC agreement would wait for Finance Minister Tito Mboweni to table his adjustment budget on Wednesday.

The union said a “very small number of individual municipali­ties” had submitted applicatio­ns for exemptions but would actively oppose them at the bargaining council.

Imatu said the impact of Covid-19 on municipal finances was based on exaggerati­ons.

The country’s 257 municipali­ties are expected to increase their more than 260 000 employees’ salaries by 6.25% from July 1.

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