TimesLIVE reports that the SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) on Wednesday formally rejected a wage proposal put together by a facilitator to end the deadlock with the employer in the local government sector.

Earlier in June, the proposal was presented to Samwu, the Independent Municipal and Allied Trade Union (Imatu) and the SA Local Government Association (Salga) after the parties failed to reach agreement during wage talks covering workers in the country’s 257 municipalities. “Samwu has formally rejected the facilitator’s proposal. We have formally communicated our decision today to the Salgbc (SA Local Government Bargaining Council). We are concluding our processes of balloting and should have a way forward before parties reconvene on July 1,” Samwu’s Papikie Mohale advised on Wednesday. If one of the parties rejects the facilitator’s proposal, negotiations move to a process of conciliation. The facilitator, Naledi Burwana-Bisiwehad, proposed that the parties agree a three-year wage agreement. She also proposed a 4% salary increase in the first year of the agreement and projected a CPI minus 1% increase in the other years of the agreement. She moreover proposed a total freeze on all benefits to municipal workers in the first year of the agreement, with these to be fully unfrozen in the last year of the agreement.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Ernest Mabuza at BusinessLive

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