The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) on Thursday condemned the unilateral decision by its employers to terminate the union’s ”organisational rights”.
The decision by the South African Local Government Association (Salga) affects the right of the union to meet with members during working hours, time off for the training of shop stewards, and the right to elect full-time shop stewards, among others.
”The Salga decision also means the shutting down of all local-level negotiating forums. We view this as a declaration of war against the union,” said Roger Ronnie, Samwu secretary general.
He said a collective agreement providing for a range of organisational rights had been in place since June 2000.
During 2004, Salga gave notice that it intended withdrawing from the agreement at the end of December 2004.
”This decision was prompted by their desire to reduce some of the rights provided for in the agreement. They were, however, unwilling to utilise the dispute resolution mechanisms available under the South African Local Government Bargaining Council [SALGBC] even though they are the employer party in the council,” said Samwu.
In response, Samwu tabled counter-proposals, declared a dispute and referred the matter to arbitration.
In December 2004, Salga informed Samwu that, with the exception of two issues, municipalities would continue to honour the organisational rights agreement pending the outcome of the arbitration.
”This was confirmed to us in a letter from Salga’s attorneys as late as March 2 this year.
”We were therefore shocked when Salga, on March 18, instructed all local authorities to immediately cease honouring the provisions of the organisational rights agreement,” said Ronnie.
He said Salga continued a trend of unilateralism on their part when it was unable to force their positions onto the unions at SALGBC level.
”It is quite clear to Samwu that Salga shows absolutely no desire or will to respect the labour market institutions promoted by the Labour Relations Act.
”Instead, they are taking us back to the dark days of apartheid with an attitude completely reminiscent of employers pre-1994.”
The union called on Salga to reinstate all organisational rights immediately and to respect the SALGBC. — Sapa