News24 reports that the SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) has expressed disappointment at what it labelled a media “smear campaign” after it was reported that it had held the City of Johannesburg hostage by threatening a wage strike during the G20 Summit.

On Sunday, the Sunday Times reported that the City would divert R4 billion from its capital expenditure budget to prevent Samwu from striking and closing roads during the summit. Samwu’s regional secretary, Thobani Nkosi, indicated on Tuesday that despite the City’s financial problems, the union was confident it would pay the workers the R10.3 billion owed to them over the agreed two years to address salary disparities dating back to 2016. He said Samwu “knows nothing” about R4 billion or where it came from, as it was asking R10 billion for its workers.

On Sunday, Mayor Dada Morero called the allegations that the money was moved to cover the costs of the workers’ wage increase to halt an embarrassing protest “entirely false” and said, “no such diversion has taken place”. Morero added that the City had not yet budgeted to pay the workers and no amount had been drawn from any capital budget for this purpose. At a briefing on Tuesday, Nkosi “categorically rejected” what he called “a misleading narrative”. He said Samwu had indicated that it would indeed protest if a wage settlement for workers was not reached, but it was a coincidence that the timing of its threat to strike was during the summit.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Alex Patrick at News24 (subscription / trial registration required)
• Read too, Union celebrates R10bn deal for Johannesburg workers, but city admits no budget exists yet, at The Citizen
• Read Samwu’s statement on the agreement with the Joburg metro at SA Labour News

Get other news reports at the SA LabourNews home page