Strike at municipality: workers demand their bonus

Don't be fooled by their dancing; they're not happy!

December 15, 2016

Bianca Pindral 2 minutes read

A Mogale City municipal employee barricaded the entrances of the Centenary Hall with burning tyres to ensure none of the department managers leave.

Employees of Mogale City Local Municipality were outraged this morning, 15 December after the money they were allegedly promised earlier this year, was not paid into their bank accounts.

The municipality allegedly promised to pay all employees a three percent bonus because of the clean audit the municipality received. It would have been paid at midnight on Wednesday, 14 December – one week before their last salary of the year would be paid.

All entrances of the grounds to Town Hall were blocked with burning tyres to keep municipal employees from leaving the site.

According to some municipal workers, the municipality allegedly signed a document that contained this promise. However, it is alleged that only the management level of the municipality received the bonus.

Municipal workers from all departments, from waste management and infrastructure to human resources and admin, gathered in front of Town Hall at 7am this morning to ask management one question: Why did the managers receive their three per cent, when they did not get theirs?

Municipal workers chanted, burned tyres and shouted in front of Town Hall until the acting Municipal Manager addressed them. It is allegedly the unions representing the municipal workers, namely Samwu and Imatu, that requested a closed meeting with the Municipal Manager to discuss the reasons for withholding the money.

The Municipal Manager and the unions went into the meeting at 10am and were still conferring at 2.20pm.

Many municipal workers even chanted in front of the Municipal Manager’s chambers.

Their chants included verses such as: “If it (the management) is sh#t, we’ll change it” and “Whatever comes our way, we will not be scared.”

Mogale City municipal employees barricaded the entrances of the Centenary Hall with burning tyres to ensure none of the department managers leave.

The municipality is yet to announce the outcome of the meeting. All entrances into the Town Hall’s grounds were blocked with burning tyres.

The DA leader in Gauteng, John Moodey says that if senior managers can be paid bonuses this year, the DA demands that workers in the municipality receive the same fairness which is far longer owing to them.

Mogale City municipal employees chanted and danced in front of the Municipal Manager' s chambers inside Town Hall after their did not receive their bonus which was promised because of the clean audit the municipality obtained. — Mogale City municipal employees chanted and danced in front of the Municipal Manager’ s chambers inside Town Hall after their did not receive their bonus which was promised because of the clean audit the municipality obtained.

“The Mayor has today rejected the plan of the acting Municipal Manager to not pay municipal staff arrear bonus amounts owing to them since 2013, while instead paying all senior management their most recent bonuses in full,” Moodey said.

According to Moodey the 2013 bonuses were promised to staff by the previous ANC government since 2013/14, but to date have not been paid.

A protester at Town Hall disguised himself after discovering the municipality will not be paying its employees the three percent bonus they allegedly promised.

“The acting Municipal Manager has admitted that the municipality simply cannot afford to pay the full amounts to all workers – this is an inherited financial failure of the ANC, as the overdraft of the inherited municipality reached R42 million. It is understandable that some of these workers are now out on protest action as a result. We sympathise wholeheartedly with their plight.”

The Mayor, Mike Holenstein, will continue to push the acting Municipal Manager to reverse this unfair situation and do what is fair to all.