JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA (ADV) – The Swaziland Electricity Supply, Maintenance and Allied Workers Union (SESMAWU) have decided to down tools as they intend to march to their head office, Eluvatsini House, in Mbabane on Thursday to deliver a petition regarding their remuneration.
The Eswatini government is still dealing with an impending proposed national strike action by public servants scheduled for January 28.
This means that the government will now have to deal with a looming industrial action by employees of the Eswatini Electricity Company (EEC).
According to SESMAWU Secretary General Maureen Nkambule the employees are fed up and have decided to confront the management.
“There are only two issues that the workers want addressed and these are the opening of negotiations regarding cost-of-living-adjustment (CoLA) and implementation of Circular No. 2 of 2016 which would result in salary alignment,” said Nkambule.
“With CoLA, we just want to be engaged in the negotiation table because this is being denied to us. Employees therefore want an explanation on why this platform is being denied. The last time they engaged us was around November last year. Initially, management said they could not engage us because there was no Cabinet in place, so we gave them indulgence. Once Cabinet was in place we went back to management to raise the CoLA issue, but they told us that they could not negotiate without getting a mandate from Cabinet.”
Public servants are also demanding a CoLA adjustment, which they have not received in the past two financial years as government has maintained a zero per cent offer and cited lack of finances as the reason.
Media reports from Swaziland confirmed that the public sector associations that will take part in the strike action include the National Public Service and Allied Workers Union, the Swaziland National Association of Teachers, the Swaziland Democratic Nurses Union and the Swaziland National Association of Government Accounting Personnel.
The associations said once the strike action kicked off, nothing would stop them unless government tabled a CoLA offer for them.
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