Today's Labour News

BL Premium reports that the City of Johannesburg’s Metrobus, which transports between 12,000 and 16,000 passengers a day, says it is exploring all available avenues to resume its services after employees downed tools from Monday demanding higher wages.

Employees aligned to the Democratic Municipal and Allied Workers Union of SA (Demawusa), an affiliate of the SA Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu), are demanding a wage increase of 18%. Their demands also include a daily allowance of R150 for all employees and a R15,000 Covid-19 allowance. Demawusa is not represented in the SA Local Government Bargaining Council, through which unions and the SA Local Government Association (Salga), the body that represents 257 municipalities, agree on wage increases and other conditions of employment. The majority of Metrobus commuters, who use weekly and monthly prepaid tickets, were left stranded this week by the industrial action and were forced to use other modes of transport. On Thursday, Metrobus spokesperson Goodwill Shiburi called on Demawusa to “find a way to form part of the bargaining council to raise their demands there”. Advising that for the past two days Metrobus had not been operating at all, Shiburi said the company wanted to resume operations as soon as possible, “but is unable to give a date at the moment”. The SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu), which is the majority union at Metrobus, said they were not part of the strike and, although its members were ready to render services, “they are not guaranteed their safety by the employer”.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Luyolo Mkentane at BusinessLive (paywall access only)

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