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The Mercury reports that the eThekwini metro has reached an agreement with trade unions to increase the salaries of employees. The SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) in eThekwini announced a landmark settlement agreement on benchmarking, following sustained union advocacy to address pay parity, among other issues.
The agreement means that workers will now be paid the same as their counterparts in other metros across the country. The settlement will be implemented from 1 July 2026, with back pay effective from 1 April 2026. The agreement will cost the municipality an additional R500 million a year. To counter that expense, the City is proposing to reduce overtime and introduce a shift system. The union and the municipality had been locked in a prolonged dispute over pay disparities in eThekwini compared to other municipalities.
Workers had previously complained that they were being paid significantly less than their counterparts in other metros. For example, the lowest-paid worker in eThekwini earns about R11,500 monthly, compared to over R15,000 elsewhere, according to the union. The agreement averted what could have been crippling industrial action during the City’s busiest period of the year. In a statement, the union said: “This agreement will benefit most eThekwini Municipality employees, with lower grades receiving proportionally significant adjustments.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Thami Magubane at The Mercury
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