Pretoria - The Independent Municipal and Allied Trade Union (Imatu) has joined the fray around a zero wage increase proposed by the City of Tshwane for municipal workers and councillors, vowing to oppose the exemption application likely to be brought by the metro against this year’s pay rise.
Union regional manager Lynette Burns-Coetzee told the Pretoria News yesterday that Imatu-affiliated workers were “not going to sit back and take” the city’s proposal of zero increase for the 2023/24 financial year.
“Imatu Tshwane will, together with the national office of Imatu, fight the exemption application to be brought against this year’s pay rise. We will represent our members and show that the affordability of the increases could be reached if the city let go of their contracting services,” she said.
Imatu’s stance was made known after the SA Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) in the region recently expressed its intention to embark on lunch-hour pickets against the proposal.
Burns-Coetzee expressed dismay at the City’s announcement, saying it would not be the first time that workers won’t receive an increase.
“In 2021, the City of Tshwane brought an application to be exempted from the salary and wage collective agreement for the payment of 2021/22 salary increases. This matter is sub judice and currently at the Labour Court,” she said.
She bemoaned the fact that the City appeared to be “unsympathetic towards their biggest asset – their human capital”.
“It is an understatement to say that our members are struggling financially. They are already out of pocket since 2021, and the knock-on effect of being without a salary increase for the second time in three years is devastating.”
She said the City spends billions of rand per financial year on service providers while workers “cannot perform their work as the vehicles or equipment is outdated, old or broken”.
“The City is, in our minds, putting the cart before the horse. How can any city function properly if there is no commitment to the workforce and no assistance to empower the workforce yet the workforce needs to perform at optimal level?” Burns-Coetzee said.
Samwu also indicated that it was concerned that the City was spending more money on “private companies, even for work that they can do”.
The union wanted to “declare one month when we would call for anti-privatisation month and say the City of Tshwane must stop using companies where workers can do the work”.
In tabling the proposal in council recently, Finance MMC Peter Sutton said the metro would apply to exempt itself from paying municipal workers a salary increment for the 2023/24 financial year. He said the position was informed by the National Treasury guideline, which advised the city to reduce its expenditure by 30%.
Sutton hoped workers would understand the rationale behind the non-payment of salary increases because they were also residents familiar with the City’s financial challenges.
“The major thing in that budget would be the proposed 0% salary increase for councillors as well as officials, and that is due to the liquidity situation we find in the City and with the National Treasury guideline that we need to reduce expenditure,” he said.
Pretoria News