Dangerous Posturing and Ignorance of Joburg’s Labour Realities

An Open Letter by Herman Mashaba, ActionSA Joburg Mayoral Candidate:

Dear Helen,

I have taken note of your unsuccessful court proceedings in Johannesburg seeking to interdict the politically compromised Politically Facilitated Agreement (PFA). For those who may not know, this is a R10 billion wage agreement concluded between the municipality and unions.

ActionSA is on record that this agreement is unaffordable for a city that is already failing to meet its service delivery obligations in respect of basic services. On this, and the scepticism regarding the ANC’s sudden concern for workers as they limp towards an election needing all the help they can get, we are in agreement.

However, this is as far as our agreement with you goes on this matter because, rather than focusing on the unaffordability of the PFA, your court papers sought to cancel the entire agreement and erase the city’s legal obligations. As it happens, the court found against your application, noting that the DA did not challenge this PFA in 2024 but has instead chosen to do so now, during an election campaign.

It is highly appropriate at this time that I offer you basic tutelage about the City of Joburg, given that we have potholes in this city that have been around longer than you have. It is evident that you have no understanding of the important but fragile relationship between this city and organised labour.

You see, the PFA arises from a CCMA-mediated settlement concluded in 2016 following labour disputes and strikes, and forms part of a legally binding collective agreement framework under the Labour Relations Act. It arises from the failure of the city to implement this agreement, resulting in a contingent liability that has accrued over many years to municipal workers, the answer to which cannot be to pretend it does not exist.

This would not be the first time your party has adopted a political posture on labour matters in order to campaign, which backfired and cost residents billions. In Tshwane, consecutive DA mayors refused to implement the collective bargaining wage agreements concluded between the city and municipal workers. Your party called the workers criminals and campaigned on a ‘tough guy’ stance despite residents going weeks without municipal services. However, the chickens came home to roost when the Labour Court found against the city and ordered the payment of the accrued R2 billion owed to workers. This nearly bankrupted the city, an expensive exercise in political theatre indeed.

The lesson from this is that politicking on legally binding agreements, and using unions to drive a Margaret Thatcher-style campaign, is misguided. Your party’s mistakes cost residents dearly in the City of Tshwane and you appear determined to repeat this for the residents of Joburg.

You see, we are in agreement that the ANC is using this PFA to buy support from workers whom they have abused for years in a bid to remain relevant in Joburg. However, the absurdity of their position cannot be mirrored, on the other extreme, by your equally reckless posture that the city must ignore legal agreements that carry serious ramifications.

This is where I can offer you advice from the perspective of someone who governed Joburg successfully during a time when labour relations were stable. I achieved this because I understood that the more than 30,000 municipal workers in Joburg were not tools for the ANC or the DA to use for political gain, but allies in driving a more stable and effective service delivery reality for our residents.

You see, Helen, Joburg is not like Cape Town. As much as your campaign solution appears to involve transplanting people and ideas from Cape Town into Joburg, the reality is that they are very different cities with completely different cultures. In Joburg, we do not adopt a paternalistic approach to labour relations. We see it as an opportunity to bring an important stakeholder to the table to work with government in delivering more and better services for our residents. After all, it is not your imported leaders from Cape Town who will be collecting refuse or fixing broken sewer lines.

So, what is to be done about all of this? The solution to the extreme of producing unaffordable PFA payouts to buy political support cannot be to deny that a legal obligation exists. The solution lies in bringing unions to the negotiating table with an approach that addresses the city’s legal obligations before they escalate further. This must take place against the backdrop of the city’s financial position and the need to prioritise service delivery. This is how ActionSA Tshwane Mayor, Dr Nasiphi Moya, addressed your party’s failures in Tshwane and prevented the city from being bankrupted.

It is clear you lack the humility to understand that an elected mayor must work with a range of key stakeholders to govern a city as complex as Joburg. One of those stakeholders is organised labour, which represents the entire civil service. Was your plan to insult workers and label them criminals, as Cilliers Brink did in Tshwane, and expect cooperation thereafter?

Helen, it seems that your kind of thinking is out of place in Joburg. In a way, it makes sense. The National Party was governing the country when you last lived here. What a relief that voters are unlikely to give you the opportunity to cause damage, only for Joburg residents to foot the bill while you return to Cape Town after the election.

Please feel free to give me a call if I can be of any further assistance in helping you better understand Joburg.