The SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) has signed a one-year wage deal, for an increase of 7% for workers in the water sector represented in the Amanzi Bargaining Council.
The increase is above the 5.2% inflation rate recorded in April and May.
The deal between Samwu, the biggest municipal union representing about 160,000 of SA’s nearly 300,000 municipal workers, and SA’s water boards, is effective from July 1 to June 30 2025.
The country’s water boards, namely Amatola Water, Bloem Water, Lepelle Northern Water, Magalies Water, Mhlathuze Water, Overberg Water, Rand Water and Umgeni Water, are collectively responsible for over 95% of bulk water supply in the country.
The boards’ functions include operating dams and other bulk water supply infrastructure and providing technical know-how to municipalities.
In his budget vote speech in May 2023, former water and sanitation minister Senzo Mchunu said municipalities owed water boards R16.7bn, while municipalities and the water boards owed the department (which has its own water trading entity) R17.4bn. “What is most worrying is that these debts are escalating rapidly, and this poses a grave risk to the financial sustainability of the water sector,” Mchunu said at the time.
The wage agreement would help bring stability in the water sector, which is crucial to several industries including manufacturing, while agriculture uses about 60% of all available water in the country for irrigation.
Samwu general secretary Dumisane Magagula said as part of the wage deal, workers would receive a housing allowance of R3,700 (increased from R3,500) per month.
“The parties have also committed to ongoing discussions on several key issues, including pay progression, post-retirement medical aid, and the introduction of a remote work policy. Additionally, several demands will be addressed at the plant level, where individual entities will negotiate directly with organised labour to reach local agreements,” Magagula said.
“These outcomes are significant for us as a Union. They signal the end of an era where employers could offer salaries that fall below the rate of inflation. We have consistently argued that inflation does not accurately reflect the rising cost of living, which workers struggle to keep up with.”
Meanwhile, in Samwu president Nelson Mokgotho’s opening remarks at the union's central executive committee meeting in Boksburg last week, he said the government of national unity (GNU) was going to shake Samwu and workers “out of our comfort zone”.
“If there is one thing that we should never allow, it is for the GNU or any government ministry to take away the hard gains of workers. We need to stand prepared to defend these gains which are a product of the sweat and blood of those who came before us,” Mokgotho said.
With the next local government elections set to take place in 2026, Mokgotho said: “If the [GNU] status quo remains, many of the country’s municipalities will be governed through governments of local unity. As workers in Tshwane, they will tell you that these coalitions do not work in the interest of workers or service delivery.”
He noted that IFP president Velenkosini Hlabisa was now co-operative governance and traditional affairs minister, and ANC MP Pemmy Majodina the new water and sanitation minister.
“Will they be on the side of workers? These are the questions we should ask ourselves. Importantly... we need to ask ourselves what we will be doing to enable them to improve service delivery to South Africans as a whole. In the water sector, we are seeing a lot of reconfigurations of water boards. Many workers do not know what is going to happen with them. They do not know how their jobs are going to be affected.”
The Samwu president took issue that some municipalities “have made it fashionable to not implement collective agreements. Look at Tshwane for instance, our members have not received their salary increases for the two years in a period of three years”.
“Instead of developing ways of addressing the issues raised by workers who were demanding the payment of their salary increase, the city resorted to getting our members arrested and dismissed.
“The arrest of our members is a direct assault on our union and the principles we stand for. We condemn these actions and demand that those workers who have been dismissed be reinstated with immediate effect.”
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