Local Government Workers Petition President Museveni On Salary

Posted by: lukwago J in Uganda news July 12, 2019

Workers under their umbrella association,Uganda Local Government Workers Union (ULGWU) have petitioned President Yoweri Museveni to intervene in a bid to raise their salary enhancement.

The petitioners sitting in their special conference on Friday at Jokas Hotel demanded that president Yoweri Museveni intervenes and causes government to implement the collective bargaining agreement 2018 as concluded under the Act accordingly.

They also demand the president intervenes and causes government to allocate sh 412 billion to cover the salary enhancement of their salaries thus be included in the supplementary budget of July 2019/20.

They also want the president to avail time to meet local government workers in order to assert their concerns and other contributions they may need to offer this sector as an affirmative action to make them equal counterparts in the mainstream public service and statutory bodies.

Local government workers through their petition to president Yoweri Museveni was moved under section 2 of public service negotiating and disputes settlement machinery Act 2008 to intervene in the implementation of the collective bargaining agreement 2018 signed between Uganda Local Government Workers Union and the Ministry of Public Service on 22^ndJune 2018 before it becomes locked.

“We are giving government up to 30^thof July to write to us over this matter of salary enhancement. Once this is not honored we shall give 90 days of ultimatum for implementation before we have joint strike,”Hassan Mudiba Uganda Local Government Workers Union General Secretary Said.

Mudiba reasoned that despite both parties agreeing to promote harmonious labour relations which culminated into the signing of this agreement, workers are surprised that government has started showing signs of not respecting her own agreement by exhibiting traits of bad negotiators.

He however warned that if this trend is not reversed they will organize sit down strike that will degenerate into labour unrest in various sectors of the economy including central government.

“we are aggrieved by the selective manner in which government is implementing phase 2 by deliberately providing for only teachers sh251billion and health workers in the financial year 2019/20 budget to the detriment of non-science local government workers and ministries who are actually beneficiaries under the phase 2 and yet the provisions of the above mentioned collective bargaining agreement 2018 does not provide for discriminative rewards. Hence government breaching the collective bargaining agreement without giving any reasonable explanation to the members surprise,”Mudiba said.

National organization of Trade Unions General Secretary Christopher Werikhe supported the move by local government workers on the petition saying it’s their right to demand for fair share of their salary enhancement.

“we salute local government workers for coming out to demand their salary enhancement.by law they are supposed to be paid according to the collective bargain agreement they signed with Public Service Ministry. We shall stand with them and fight to ensure they get their equal share for their demands so that salary enhancement across all public sectors is addressed,”Werikhe said.

He advised workers to must remain united in order to continue engaging Government and generate aresolution signed by Representatives from all Local Governments and Municipalities expressing the need for salary enhancement as it was successfully done by Teachers, Prosecutors / Chief Magistrates,public University Lecturers and recently District Directors of Health Services (DHSS) just to mention a few. The voices of united fronts is more heard than those of acting individually.

Meeting at the National conference on Friday at Jokas Hotel in Kampala workers anonymously launched a new campaign to enhance their salaries dubbed support Living Wage Campaign. Under the campaign workers are demanding for descent pay, descent work environment, equal pay for the work of equal value, nondiscrimination at work place and descent handling of human resource to which they said will improve quality service delivery. The Workers demand for payment of sh512 billion to enhance their salaries this financial year 2019/20.

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