Local government workers to petition Museveni over salary increment

Local government workers under their umbrella body, the Uganda Local Government Workers’ Union (ULGWU) have resolved to petition President Museveni to complain over breaching of the Collective Bargaining Agreement signed with government.

The  Ministry of Public Service early this released a new structure that indicated a salary increment for eight categories of government employees including district health officers and their assistants, Specialist medical officers, dental surgeons and pharmacists in salary scale U2, consultants, senior consultants and directors of hospitals.

In a special meeting held at Jokas Hotel in Bweyogerere, Wakiso district on Friday, the local government workers unanimously resolved to sign and take a petition to the President explaining their grievances with immediate effect.

“We are aggrieved by the selective manner in which government is implementing the Collective Bargaining Agreement yet this was never agreed upon,” ULGWU General Secretary, Hassan Lwabayi Mudiba told journalists.

The local government workers said according to the new salary structure, government gave teachers shs251 billion and shs13 billion to health workers but the same treatment was never accorded to them and other non-science workers, saying it is being unfair.

“Provisions of the Collective Bargaining Agreement didn’t provide for discriminative rewards and doing so by government is a surprise to many of us.”

“The union’s efforts to resolve the issue amicably have not been adequately attended to since government’s attention is mostly attracted by groups which threaten to withdraw labour,”Mudiba said.

Petition

The group resolved that in the few coming days, they will petition President Museveni in a bid to highlight their plight in a bid to get solutions.

“The President should intervene and cause government to implement the Collective Bargaining Agreement 2018 and allocate shs412 billion to cover the enhancement of our salaries.

The group also resolved that in the petition, they would demand that Museveni meets them so they can assert their concerns and contributions they may need to offer as an affirmative action to make them equal to their counterparts in the mainstream public service and statutory bodies.

“If nothing is done, local government workers have been compelled to give a statutory notice of 90 days to withdraw labour effective July 31, 2019,”Mudiba said.