The SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) has thrown its weight behind a benchmarking agreement that could see the City of Johannesburg forking out more than R10bn, to align staff salaries with those of employees in other metropolitan municipalities.
It lashed out at the DA for being opposed to a deal in which the municipality has committed to pay a minimum of R1.2bn, up to a maximum of R2bn, by March 2026; a minimum of R5bn, up to a maximum of R6bn by July 2026; and a payment of R4.1bn by July 2027.
The city is battling service delivery challenges on several fronts, from water and electricity to roads and hijacked buildings. SA’s economic and financial heart is responsible for 16% of GDP and employs 12% of the national workforce.
On an oversight visit to the city in March, President Cyril Ramaphosa noted it faced “enormous challenges, ranging from financial and governance instability to rapidly deteriorating infrastructure”.
The metro has been cleaning up the city ahead of the Group of 20 (G20) leaders’ summit this weekend.
The Sunday Times reported that the deal between the city and Samwu came amid threats by the Cosatu affiliate to disrupt the global summit by closing down “all the freeways”.
It quoted Samwu’s Johannesburg regional chair, Ester Mtatyana, calling publicly for radical action by the union’s 30,000 members if the organisation’s demands were not met.
“If workers’ demands are not [resolved], there is no G20 that will take place. Nothing will move in Gauteng,” Mtatyana said in a widely circulated video.
The R10bn deal has attracted the ire of DA Joburg caucus leader Belinda Kayser-Echeozonjoku, who has since written to the finance minister, the auditor-general, and co-operative governance and traditional affairs minister Velenkosini Hlabisa, among others. She has stated that if the metro entered into a R10bn commitment without approved budgetary provision, “this may amount to unauthorised expenditure, financial misconduct and a serious breach of the city’s fiduciary duties”.
“This situation is unfolding while residents are enduring severe service delivery failures: some communities have been without water for weeks; others have been without electricity for days; City Power contractors have protested over non-payment,” Kayser-Echeozonjoku said.
“Despite these crises, the mayor and his executive appear willing to make extraordinary, unfunded financial undertakings to appease Samwu, an act that undermines financial stability at a time of escalating service delivery collapse.”
Accountability, she said, was not negotiable. “The residents of Johannesburg deserve an administration that demonstrates transparency, honesty and adherence to the law. At present, this is not the case. We trust that the Treasury will treat this matter with the urgency it requires.”
She added the benchmark agreement was “political expediency at its worst”.
Samwu regional secretary Thobani Nkosi said: “It is a moral disgrace that the city would only move with this sense of urgency once the looming threat of international embarrassment at the G20 summit forced their hand.
“This demonstrates a deeply twisted set of priorities where international perception is valued above the basic dignity and legal rights of its own workforce. Our members were forced to resort to the most powerful tool available to them, the threat of withdrawing their essential labour simply to compel the employer to honour a contractual and legal commitment that should have been settled years ago.”
Nkosi said that the “DA’s manufactured outrage is nothing short of political theatre and gross hypocrisy, exposing them as an anti-worker and fundamentally anti-black party opposed to the economic upliftment of municipal staff”.
“[Kayser-] Echeozonjoku’s malicious claim that the payment is a ‘disgrace’ while residents wait for water is a transparent and cynical attempt to weaponise service delivery issues against the workers who dedicate their lives to solving them.”
The city had confirmed the settlement was based on “common job grading, external benchmarking” and was subject to the Public Finance Act’s principles of “affordability and sustainability”.
“The mayor’s office has stated that the payment will be funded over three years through improved revenue management, structural efficiencies and strict expenditure controls, not through any diversion of capital funds,” Nkosi said.
“When workers are compensated fairly and their labour stability is ensured, they are healthier, more motivated and more effective. A municipality that fails its employees will inevitably fail its residents,” Nkosi said.
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