This follows the City’s announcement of a settlement worth $192.75 million to address municipal workers’ salaries. Media reports had suggested the City agreed to the deal to prevent demonstrations by municipal workers during the high-profile summit.
SAMWU, however, insists the matter stems from a longstanding dispute over salary disparities. The union argues that Johannesburg municipal workers have been unfairly remunerated at Grade 8, while counterparts in other metropolitan municipalities are paid at the Grade 10 level.
Although SAMWU had publicly warned of radical action if its demands were not met, the union maintains it never issued threats to the City.
“We’ve never threatened the City of Johannesburg. What we did was hold our meetings as a trade union, and they might have seen our slogans. From our slogans, we said, ‘No G10, no G20,’ and the G10 simply means no Grade 10 salary, no G20 will take place in Johannesburg. They came across those videos. There’s nowhere we wrote to the City of Johannesburg threatening them, there’s nowhere we sat in a meeting threatening the City. All we did was just drive our own slogans,” said SAMWU Gauteng Secretary Thobani Nkosi.
–SABC/ChannelAfrica–
