Enoch Mgijima Municipality workers have returned to work after reaching an agreement with municipal bosses, effectively ending a week-long strike that left Komani drowning in piles of rubbish.
The workers were demanding harmonisation of the salaries of the three former local municipalities - Tsolwana, Inkwanca and Lukhanji - meaning they wanted workers doing the same job to be paid the same.
The SA Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) previously said that addressing the pay disparities would cost an estimated R8m.
However, authorities and Samwu were tightlipped about the details of the agreement.
Over the weekend, the municipality hired a service provider to clean the town and parts of the townships.
Samwu Enoch Mgijima secretary Thabo Ngwane said: “As from Monday, all workers are back to work. On Friday we reached an agreement with the employer on all the demands we made.”
While he would not disclose the monetary value of the agreement, Ngwane said: “They agreed to pay some of the workers starting from the lowest at the end of this month and pay others in phases until the end of the financial year.”
The council met in a special meeting on Monday where a decision was taken to rubber-stamp the agreement. The item was considered in committee.
But after the meeting, EFF councillor Andisiwe Ngonyama said the mayoral committee had updated council on the outcomes of the meeting they had with workers on Friday.
“They said they had agreed to pay 50% of the workers at the end of the month and the rest of the workers in phases until the end of this financial year.
“Council welcomed the decision,” she said.
United Front EC councillor Aaron Mhlontlo said according to the update, an agreement had not been reached on the demand that all contract workers be absorbed.
“About 250 workers qualified for the harmonisation and the workers demanded that they all be paid this month. On negotiations it was agreed to pay a certain amount now and the others in phases until end of the financial year,” he said.
Mhlontlo said the amount to be paid to the 250 employees was kept a secret.
“We told them a long time ago that there must be people dedicated to identifying how many workers are owed and are set to benefit from this exercise and how much is owed to them, but they never did that,” he said.
The manager in the office of the mayor, Butsha Lali, confirmed an agreement had been reached between the employer and the workers.
He said they would only be able to comment once the workers had signed the agreement.
At the time of writing the workers were still meeting behind closed doors in the Komani City Hall...