The SA Local Government Bargaining Council has issued a stern warning to the country’s 257 municipalities against three trade unions in the sector it does not recognise.
THE SA Local Government Bargaining Council (SALGBC) has issued a stern warning to the country’s 257 municipalities against three trade unions in the sector it does not recognise.
The SALGBC has told municipalities that two SA Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) affiliates, the Municipal and Allied Trade Union of SA (Matusa) and the Democratic Municipal and Allied Workers Union of SA (Demawusa) as well as the Municipal Employees and Civil Servants Union (Mecsu), should not be allowed to bargain on behalf of workers in local government.
SALGBC general secretary Bill Govender informed municipalities that they should not enter into separate recognition agreements or any other agreement on organisational rights with any unrecognised minority trade union. He said the main collective agreement regulates such matters in local government.
According to Govender, the threshold for recognition and a trade union’s right to conclude agreements on organisational rights is a membership of 15% of the total number of employees falling under the bargaining council’s scope.
“This is a national threshold and not a workplace threshold. Unrecognised trade unions must meet this threshold at the national level and not at the municipal level in order to qualify for recognition and collective bargaining rights,” he wrote in a letter to all municipal managers, chief financial officers, human resources directors and employees on October 10.
Govender continued: “Municipal workers should take note that unrecognised minority trade unions such as Matusa, Demawusa and Mecsu cannot bargain on their behalf.”
The letter was also sent to parties to the SALGBC – the two recognised unions – the SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) and the Independent Municipal and Allied Trade Union (Imatu) – as well as the representative organisation of municipalities, the SA Local Government Association (Salga).
Samwu and Imatu represent 96% of municipal workers or 259,123 of the 271,308 local government employees. Govender added that collective agreements on wage curves, increases, and terms and conditions of employment can only be negotiated and concluded with Imatu and Samwu.
The SALGBC and its parties oppose the proliferation of multiple trade unions and employer organisations in local government and urged municipalities to do the same, as this presents a risk of increased industrial action and erosion of stability and destabilisation of centralised collective bargaining arrangements.
Matusa, Demawusa and Mecsu were established by unionists who broke away from Samwu, largely after Cosatu fired its then-general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi in 2015 and expelled its then-biggest affiliate, the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa), in 2014. Vavi and Numsa later established Saftu, although they have since fallen out.
Two of the aggrieved unions, Matusa and Mecsu, have dismissed the SALGBC’s move, stating that the 15% threshold applied to every single municipality as a workplace. Kurt Ziervogel, general secretary of Saftu affiliate Matusa, said the threshold referred to by Govender is a national threshold.
“Fact is that each municipality is a workplace on its own … The Labour Relations Act (LRA) does not make any reference to unrecognised unions. The act refers to a registered trade union, which Matusa is,” he insisted.
Mecsu general secretary Vukile Mlungwana concurred, adding that the SALGBC’s threshold for a trade union’s rights to conclude agreements on organisational rights is 15% membership falling under its scope, is against the LRA as a scope of the bargaining council is not a workplace.
“Under no circumstances may a municipality justify its decision to deny granting of the organisational rights to a trade union on the basis of proliferation of trade unions,” he explained.
Mlungwana warned the SALGBC to desist from peddling misinformation and confusing municipalities and their employees in order to continue monopolising the sector.
Saftu and its other affiliate in the sector, Demawusa, did not respond to enquiries this week.
