Pretoria - The argument raised by the SA Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) to dismiss the City of Tshwane’s bid for an exemption from proposed pay increases was overlooked by the local government’s collective bargaining council yesterday.
The Pretoria News recently reported that the metro, Samwu and the Independent Municipal and Allied Union (Imatu) met the bargaining council on Tuesday. However, the meeting was stalled.
Workers under the Samwu banner demanding a 5.4% salary increase have been holding a strike that is now entering its fifth week.
This after Samwu made some new arguments for senior commissioner Eleanor Hambidge to consider before the hearing takes place on Wednesday, August 30.
The union argued that the City failed to implement the order and instead filed an exemption application and informed its members that the application was months late, noting that the City had known their intention not to pay since March this year.
They also argued that the City of Tshwane submitted its exemption application late – the City’s application is defective because it does not contain all prescribed documents and that the application by the City was not in compliance with the wage and salary collective agreement.
For those reasons, the union asked for the commissioner to dismiss the City’s exemption bid.
In the ruling, Hambidge dismissed Samwu’s bid and requested case management to schedule the exemption for argument on Wednesday.
“As a point of departure, jurisdiction is a matter of law. However, to state the obvious, there is a difference between jurisdiction and merits.
“Having applied my mind, I dismiss all the points in limine, as raised. To a large degree, most of the points raised pertained to the actual merits of the application, such as some aspects of the application being premised on hearsay evidence, and that the application for exemption is defective as it is based on incomplete evidence and is poorly drafted as it does not meet the standard criteria set out in the collective agreement,” said the ruling in part.
It added that Samwu’s point in limine pertaining to the alleged failure by the City to file the exemption application within a reasonable time was also dismissed.
City chief of staff Jordan Griffiths welcomed the decision.
He said: “The City welcomes the decision by the commissioner to dismiss all the points in limine. The City will be prepared to make its arguments on August 30.”
Samwu’s provincial secretary, Mpho Tladinyane, said the union was not shaken by the ruling and was also looking forward to the hearing.
Pretoria News