Pikitup workers to sign wage offer on Friday

Samwu’s deputy provincial secretary, Nonceba Mbilini, said the union had agreed “in principle” with the wage offer made by the City of Johannesburg’s waste management company, but they had not “finalised everything”.

“Both parties have agreed on principle on the offer. As I speak to you now, we have a draft agreement but we have not yet signed,” Mbilini said.

“There were some loose ends that we needed to tie up, but almost everything has been finalized. We will not be able to share the offer with the public for now until we sign tomorrow at 1 o’clock.”

At least 4,000 Pikitup workers affiliated to Samwu embarked on an unprotected strike on March 9, demanding wage hikes from R6,000 to R10,000 a month.

The workers were also demanding the removal of Pikitup Managing Director Amanda Nair whom they accuse of graft.

Although the high court cleared Nair of any wrongdoing, after fresh allegations were recently made by Samwu an independent inquiry was instituted and is still ongoing.

When the strike came to an end on Saturday night, an agreement had been reached that workers would return to work immediately and that Pikitup would make a once-off payment of R750 to all Grade A and B workers.

The workers duly reported for work at their respective depots on Monday morning.

Negotiations to resolve the salary impasse started on Monday.

On Thursday the City of Johannesburg put a wage offer on the table which the union leaders took to workers for consideration.

By Thursday afternoon, negotiations for salary parity resumed at CCMA with workers’ input taken into consideration.

The negotiations on salary benchmarking were based on the principle of a salary scale, a common grading system, and salary progression based on tenure and job performance.

It was also agreed that the eventual salary increments agreed to in negotiations would b