Dear Editor
The Democratic Alliance (DA) calls on Mayor Nasiphi Moya and her administration to reconsider their decision not to take the backdated salary increase award on review. We also call on the City to table a comprehensive budget funding plan in Council, so that other difficult decisions can be made to avoid the cashflow crisis that would otherwise follow.
There are compelling grounds for the Tshwane Metro to dispute its obligation to pay R2 billion in salary increases backdated to 2021. It has until 14 December to take the matter on review to the Labour Court.
The DA recommends that this step be taken, for the simple reason that the City has itself admitted that it does not know where the R2 billion will come from. Applying the legal test, the City cannot afford these increases.
In these circumstances, the City has an obligation to residents who pay rates, tariffs and charges to take the R2 billion obligation on review. Refusing even to consider this option will not only prejudice Tshwane’s four million residents.
It may also be to the major detriment of the City’s workforce, a fact which the City’s two labour unions do not seem to have considered. Despite the City’s offers of a settlement, the unions have insisted on full payment of the backdated increases.
There are many ANC-led municipalities in the country that eagerly pay above-inflation salary increases to municipal employees, often out of fear of strike action. A few months later, those same municipalities then fail to pay salaries on time, or dip into workers’ pensions to fund operations.
The DA is not opposed to a settlement with trade unions, but such a settlement must be affordable to residents. Given the attitude of union leaders, such a settlement will not be possible if the City foregoes the option of litigation.
Earlier this year, the Tshwane Metro won its Labour Court case over the 2023 salary freeze. Invoking the affordability clause of the collective agreement on salaries, the Court agreed with the City that it could not afford to pay the R600 million in salary increases that were due in 2023.
The Court’s decision turned on affordability, a factor which the Local Government Bargaining Council failed to consider in any sufficient detail. The 2023 salary freeze was a decision made out of necessity, and was supported by both the ANC and ActionSA, parties which have now changed their position.
The 2023 salary freeze enabled the City to secure a favourable payment arrangement on arrear Eskom debt, which my colleague Cllr Jacqui Uys has explained in more detail.
Salaries and bulk electricity purchases are the two major operational expenses of any municipality, and while Tshwane was in acute financial distress, one of these two expenses had to give.
The Labour Court also ordered the Bargaining Council to consider an earlier salary freeze, which the Council had inexplicably rejected – without hearing any arguments – in 2022.
It was no surprise that on 3 November this year the same Bargaining Council came to the same conclusion it did in 2022. What was surprising was how poorly the decision was crafted. In fact, it is fundamentally flawed.
The Bargaining Council Commissioner conceded in his award that granting backdated salary increases would have a “very huge” financial impact on the City. And so, he granted the City six (6) months to implement the award.
He made a few references to the City’s improved financial position in 2022, but at no point did he quantify how much these backdated increases would cost the City. Nor did he assess the City’s ability to pay these increases relative to its existing means and obligations.
It turns out that “very huge,” as the Commissioner phrased it, amounted to R2 billion in once-off costs and an additional R400 million per year added to the City’s salary bill.
Regards
Ald Cilliers Brink
DA Tshwane Mayoral Candidate