Pretoria - The impasse between the City of Tshwane and the SA Municipal Workers' Union regarding benchmarking payments for the workers is far from over.
The union intends taking the metro to the South African Local Government Bargaining Council in a bid to force it to comply with a collective benchmarking agreement by the two parties last year.
In terms of the agreement, the City was supposed to have paid lump sums to workers on July 26, backdated to 2017 when the metro was accorded a Level 10 grade.
Both parties reached the agreement at the bargaining council in Centurion for the City to disburse lump sums to workers.
Samwu regional secretary Mpho Tladinyane said: “In pursuit of addressing the impasse, we have enlisted the assistance of the bargaining council to mediate so that parties arrive at an amicable solution.”
The move by the union came on the back of a court interdict obtained by the City against Samwu workers, who embarked on an unprotected strike.
In terms of the interdict, workers were barred from disrupting service delivery, engaging in an unprotected strike, damaging municipal property and intimidating non-striking employees or contractors linked to the City.
Despite the interdict, the City yesterday said A Re Yeng bus operations have been suspended with immediate effect due to safety concerns and Tshwane bus services would also remain suspended.
City spokesperson Selby Bokaba said: “Our bus drivers were threatened, and considering that there is no security along our operational areas after 15 of our traffic controllers were damaged, we decided to withdraw our fleet.”
He said it would cost about R500000 to repair the 15 traffic controllers.
DA mayoral candidate Randall Williams called on the administrators and the provincial government to ensure public order police were urgently deployed to Tshwane to monitor and protect city infrastructure.
Head Mpho Nawa reiterated that the City had decided to pay workers the annual wage increments amid very tight budgetary constraints.
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Pretoria News