The South African Local Government Association (Salga) has withdrawn its Labour Court application to halt the nationwide strike by municipal workers, the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) said on Tuesday.
“The advice of the Labour Court judge was that Salga’s case was completely without merit and risked being dismissed with contempt,” it said in a statement.
Salga sought an interdict to halt the strike on Tuesday after municipal services were affected nationwide when the strike over pay scales started on Monday.
A similar bid for an interdict was struck off the court roll on Saturday as it was not considered urgent.
Salga said if it increased salaries as required, it would exceed the amount allocated to it by the treasury to pay staff, and it would not have enough money to pay for the services supplied by municipalities.
The Johannesburg Labour Court ruling also ordered Salga to pay legal costs incurred by Samwu.
Samwu’s collective bargaining officer, Dale Forbes, said it was an “irresponsible abuse of taxpayers’ money”.
“We call on Salga — now that its legal campaign has been proven to be hopelessly flawed and Samwu’s contention that it had followed all due processes has been vindicated — to seriously apply itself to the issues at hand.”
The union wanted “pay parity at municipal level” and an effective job-evaluation system.
“We must have appropriate salaries for all local government workers, and lawyers and retired judges must remove themselves from internal disciplinary matters,” Forbes said.
The parties will meet for talks soon to try to resolve the matter.
Salga’s executive director advocate Mzwanele Yawa said: “Their preparedness to meet with us and discuss the matter amicably is what caused us to be eager to withdraw the matter so we can give space to negotiations.”
The meeting could be held later this week, Yawa said. — Sapa