Six major Pikitup depots are down, and frustrated residents are paying private operators R69 a pop to remove their bins. They are doing a roaring trade as yet another service goes to pot in Joburg.

The Randburg, Waterval, Roodepoort, Avalon, Orange Farm and Marlboro depots are down, councillors confirmed to the Daily Maverick, leaving people with overflowing bins across large parts of the city, stretching from the north to the west. These are half the depots in the city.

Casual workers who were promised jobs are protesting, while Pikitup workers are either on go-slows or wildcat, undeclared strikes, because Mayor Dada Morero has held back their July payment under an expensive, so-called politically facilitated agreement (PFA) with city workers, because the city is near-insolvent.

The PFA is expensive, at R10.3-billion over the short term, and was quickly signed when workers threatened to strike during the November 2025 G20 heads of state meeting in Johannesburg, just as President Cyril Ramaphosa needed to put on a good show.

Now Joburgâs run out of money, and Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana is expressly refusing to pony up for the expensive salary adjustments, saying the PFA is unfunded.

The ten billion smackaroos are one of the big sticking points that made Godongwana seal the purse on paying the cityâs equitable share allocation, without which it cannot operate. The city did not pay workers the promised allocation in July. It was negotiating a more limited amount on the PFA when it was alleged municipal union Samwu held city officials hostage, a charge Samwu denied, as News24 first reported here.

City manager Floyd Brink issued notices suspending union representatives in June, and that has inflamed relationships. The Pikitup strike is one outcome.

âThe PFA was not implemented in July,â said Samwu Johannesburg shop-steward Esther Mtatyana, who is also a PFA task team member.

âI didnât see any hostage taking. When employers talk to us, they must not treat us like employees â itâs not like a parent-child relationship. We are stakeholders, and we are equal. Donât expect us to make ourselves below your level,â she said about the incident.

The City did not respond to a request for comment.

Mtatyana said the PFA was a wage/salary scale adjustment, outstanding from 1995, when a new local government regime was instituted. It sets salaries and wages in accordance with the size, complexity and budget of municipalities.

Mtatyana said Joburg had never adjusted as the City was preparing for its first democratic-era overhaul, which united many smaller municipalities into a metro. She said workers were effectively two grades behind where they should be.

âThey left workers behind,â she said, adding that senior staff, such as top management, had enjoyed the notch increases. She said the union was flexible as it understood the financial crisis, but that the threatened suspensions had hardened attitudes.

The City knows it has to adjust, but Brink sits between the workers and the finance minister, both breathing down his neck.

âNot on strikeâ

âWe are currently experiencing disruptions due to ongoing protest action by casual workers contracted to waste collection,â said Pikitup in a statement.

âThis prevents permanent Pikitup employees from leaving the depots to conduct scheduled waste collection. Pikitup wishes to emphasise that its employees are not on strike and remain available to provide waste collection services,â the entity said.

But not all councillors are buying this.

âIn my 15 years as a councillor, Iâve seen this pattern before â Pikitup workers often start labour disputes right before an election, betting the ruling party [the ANC] will cave once the bins pile up and the smell gets bad enough,â said Ward 117 councillor Tim Truluck.

A former union leader, speaking on condition of anonymity, did not dispute that what was happening was a go-slow or wildcat strike (a wildcat strike takes place outside the rules of the Labour Relations Act, which include worker balloting, employee notification and negotiation).

The person said the union could not formally strike because it was in disarray and lacked a strike fund to support workers under no-work, no-pay rules.

In many areas, as with most services, failed-state services are thriving. SA Waste Management is doing a roaring trade at a pickup of R69/bin, and its leaflet cheekily says, âJust because they canât pick it up, doesnât mean we canât.â

âIt boggles my mind. How can they (the city administration) stand helplessly by while casual workers obstruct collections? There is so much angst (on WhatsApp groups). A doctor just sent a picture of a right royal mess (on a grass verge). After a day or so, youâre putting the black (garbage) bags on the bin and the birds make holes,â said a Bryanston Daily Maverick reader who did not want to be named.

She happily paid up to get her bin collected. âBut I feel weâre letting them (the City) off so easily,â she said, referring to the tariff charged by the City for waste collection.

Five big issues

Julia Fish, the executive director of JoburgCAN (Community Action Network), said there were four big issues at play. These are:

1. 300 casual workers thought they would be made permanent. They are temporarily blocking access to depots and have barricaded them for between two days and three weeks.

2. The PFA was a second big issue. The City had budgeted R1-billion to implement part of the PFA, but workers want R5-billion this year, as promised by Morero. These are not salary increases, but notch increases to improve their take-home packages. Workers received a 4.5% increase as part of a five-year deal in July â just above inflation.

3. Fish said the City had a general liquidity crisis, which meant there was no money for diesel or to service waste collection trucks. A lot of the fleet was grounded. The City also lacked the funds to pay workers overtime to address backlogs. She said Pikitup could not be self-sustaining or profitable, unlike Joburg Water and City Power, which could be under the National Treasuryâs Metro Trading Services Reform plan (both are currently basket cases, but could be turned around). Pikitup is subsidised to the tune of about R1-billion annually, said Fish. Anna Cox reported that Pikitup says its cash reserves are being held in a central account to fund other operations.

4. Two of four city landfills are full, and a waste-to-energy scheme funded by international partners has been delayed.

5. There is a real risk of a rates boycott, said Fish, who said residents in Vanderbijl Park, Emfuleni, had paid only for refuse removal received. âItâs very easy for residents to say, âI paid for four; I only received two,â and cut their payment. Emfuleni had taken this point to court and won,â she said. DM

How municipal pay works â the PFA issues

Municipal salaries are governed by three separate systems, depending on whether the employee is an elected politician, a senior executive or an ordinary municipal worker.â including mayors, speakers, members of mayoral committees (MMCs) and councillors â are paid in accordance with annual regulations issued by the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA). The regulations set upper limits on remuneration for municipalities, grouped into six grades, with

Political office bearersGrade 6covering the countryâs largest metropolitan municipalities andGrade 1covering the smallest local municipalities.

InGrade 6municipalities, including Johannesburg, Cape Town, eThekwini and Tshwane, executive mayors receive total annual remuneration packages of aboutR1.5-million to R1.6-million, while MMCs earn aroundR1.25-million to R1.35-million. Ordinary ward councillors typically receive betweenR550,000 and R600,000a year.

InGrade 1municipalities, mayors receive aroundR800,000 to R850,000, while ordinary councillors earn betweenR280,000 and R320,000a year.

These aretotal remuneration packagesthat incorporate salary, pension and medical aid contributions, housing and travel allowances, and other prescribed benefits.â municipal managers and managers directly accountable to municipal managers (Section 56 and 57 managers) â are regulated under a separate remuneration framework.

Senior municipal executives

Unlike councillors, they are classified into10 municipal categories, ranging fromCategory 1, covering the smallest and least complex municipalities, toCategory 10, which includes the countryâs largest metropolitan municipalities. The categorisation is based on factors such as population, operating budget, revenue and institutional complexity.

InCategory 10municipalities, municipal managers typically earn betweenR2.1-million and R4-milliona year, while executive directors generally earn betweenR1.7-million and R3.2-million. InCategory 1municipalities, municipal managers generally earn betweenR1.2-million and R1.6-million, while executive directors earn betweenR1-million and R1.3-million.

Theordinary municipal workforceâ including administrative staff, technicians, artisans and other employees â falls under the South African Local Government Bargaining Council (SALGBC). Their salaries are determined through collective bargaining using the nationally appliedTaskjob evaluation system, which grades jobs fromTask Grade 1 to Task Grade 20based on their responsibilities, skills, and complexity. This is where the problem is: workers say their Task grades are incorrect.

While employees performing the same job are evaluated under the same Task system, total remuneration may differ between municipalities due to locally negotiated conditions of service, notch progression, overtime, standby and shift allowances, scarce-skills payments, and other employment benefits.Source: Gemini CoPilot sourced from the Swellendam Municipality.