The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (SAMWU) has outlined a number of demands that will be made during negotiations with the government later this year. One of the demands will include a new minimum wage for municipal workers.
SAMWU represents 160 000 workers spanning across 257 municipalities, and last week started its national collective conference to discuss wage proposals. As reported by BusinessTech, SAMWU said that the workers it represents can no longer be tied to multi-year agreements that are not in their best interest.
The union also plans to negotiate for an R4000 increase across the board for all municipal workers.
The biggest shift is that the union believes that a minimum wage of R15 000 is reasonable and appropriate for all municipal workers, no matter what their job is in the sector.
The current minimum wage payable to municipal workers is R8330.
Some of the other demands include:
- Housing allowance – The introduction of a R3500 housing allowance for all workers
- Medical aid – For low-earning workers, the union will demand 80% medical aid contribution by employers while workers will contribute 20%. In addition, the union will demand the scrapping of capping medical aid contribution by employers in both sectors
- Parental leave – The union will demand six months of maternity leave with full pay for mothers and one-month of maternity leave with full pay for fathers
- Pension funds – The union will demand a 25% employer contribution towards pension
- Danger/risk allowance – The union will demand an ex-gratia (voluntary) payment from the time that the country declared a state of disaster
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