BL Premium writes that the two recognised unions in the local government sector wanted a bigger wage increase in recent negotiations but, in a deal largely viewed as favourable to the employers, were forced to compromise due to the negative economic climate and the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the wage hike agreement, unions unexpectedly accepted many proposals that they had previously opposed, such as a multiyear agreement instead of the one-year deal they had sought, a freeze on some benefits and a window for parties to opt out of the agreement. The SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu), representing about 160,000 of the country’s nearly 300,000 municipal workers, said though the deal was not what its members wanted, it was much better than the one a facilitator had proposed. Samwu’s Papikie Mohale commented on Friday that the unions had rejected the facilitator’s proposal because “it said all benefits must be frozen during the duration of the agreement”. Mohale went on to point out: “With this agreement that we have signed, it’s only in the first year of the agreement that some benefits will be frozen and everything will be back to normal during the outer years of the deal.” Keith Swanepoel of the Independent Municipal and Allied Trade Union noted that the wage hike agreement was not the “best deal for local government and our members”, but the union had had to accept it because the government was broke. “We are acutely aware of the dire state of municipal finances, and what has made matters worse is the unfortunate situation that we are in because of the pandemic,” he noted. Chrissy Dube of Good Governance Africa commented: “I think the effect of the pandemic on the economy played a very vital role in giving them [unions] that lower percentage, compared to what they were demanding.”

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

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