Dear ISA members
Wage negotiations 2017/18
The employer has issued their response on the wage demands:
Salary adjustment (Labour’s demand: 13% across the board): The employer has been upfront, putting their affordable figure of a 7.3% increase on the table. They say that based on the Reward and Remuneration projects and the implementation of the proficiency and the insourcing of staff, it would be unaffordable to offer more than this figure.
Paternity leave (Labour’s demand: paternity leave increased to 5 days and separate it from family responsibility leave): The employer has offered 3 days paid paternity leave. The family responsibility leave remains at 5 days.
All the other demands have been rejected by the employer, stating that it is completely unaffordable.
Labour is not happy with the employer’s total disregard for further negotiations and also the delay in the 2016/17 outstanding matters and declared a dispute. A dispute meeting will be held within 10 days as per the policy and if no consensus is reached the matter will be taken to the CCMA.
Performance Proficiency Assessment
The proficiency assessment will take place during May and June 2017, as reported in the April newsletter. Labour expressed their dissatisfaction that the process is taking so long. Although Labour understands that the implementation date is October 2016, members of the core who have not benefitted are anxious.
How the process will be rolled out: Once the proficiency assessment panel members have been approved, each core staff member will be assessed by these panels based on the criteria already set out by the Proficiency Expert Committees. Each employee will be assessed, except those that are already earning level 3 salaries. The assessments should be on a one on one basis. If the employee has a problem, he/she should lodge an objection and another committee will do the review. Once finalized, the employee will move to the minimum of the new salary scale, and if they are already above this scale, their salaries will remain unchanged. Payment due following the process will be backdated to October 2016.
Membership fee increase
SAPTU has always tried to keep our membership fees as low as possible. The Management Committee has decided due to the present difficult economic times we are experiencing, the increase from R60 to R65 per month from the end of June 2017, is a “bare bones” increase as the office rent, internet, phone and data costs, travel and petrol expenses, and staff salaries have increased markedly while membership fees have not increased in the last two years.