The Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) and the South African Local Government Association (Salga) have signed a three-year memorandum of understanding to solidify their strategic partnership aimed at promoting labour peace and equity.

The strategic partnership will effectively dispense social justice through the CCMA using Salga's municipal and municipal entities’ facilities, for selected CCMA processes/cases.

Further, the CCMA and Salga will collaborate on labour market thought leadership, such as labour market policy development, labour laws, collective bargaining, governance and dispute resolution and strategic research.

In addition, the parties will collaborate on data analytics and business intelligence on matters referred by local government to the CCMA to enable Salga to better understand local government labour challenges and their root causes.

The CCMA will also assist Salga with dispute management and prevention services through CCMA programmes, such as managing conflict management and building workplace relations, and the CCMA will consider local government as an area of Commissioner specialisation in order to enable commissioners to better intervene in local government labour-related matters.

“The strategic partnership between Salga and the CCMA, established in the crucial year of local government elections, will see, in the near future, selected CCMA processes or cases being conducted at Salga and its municipal facilities, where availability and practicality allow,” says CCMA executive director Cameron Morajane.

“Geographically, Salga and its municipal facilities are closer to the people, and it has facilities in many nodal areas of the country, including rural areas where the CCMA currently does not have a footprint. This means that the CCMA’s dispute prevention, management and resolution services will be brought closer to where people work, live, worship and play.”

The CCMA and Salga are optimistic that the three-year strategic partnership will benefit the labour market and the people of South Africa, while ensuring that both entities deliver on their respective mandates.