Disgruntled municipal workers’ strike

MBOMBELA- Bush cutter operators employed by Mbombela Local Municipality stormed at the civic centre on Monday demanding a meeting with Executive Mayor, Cllr Cathy Dlamini. They claimed that they were paid as general workers since 2008 while they have been working with machinery and should be considered as skilled workers.

The disgruntled workers told Mpumalanga News that in 2012, they had a meeting with the mayor who promised to attend to the issue and have it fixed by May 2013.

“She even told us that she was going to give the people responsible an ultimatum that if they do not resolve the problem during the time frame, they will face serious action, but nothing has been done since then,” said one of the workers who wished to remain anonymous.

They added that they called another meeting early this year but Dlamini did not pitch and there has never been any response from her since then.

“We work under harsh conditions with heavy machinery and threats of being bitten by snakes and at times we are stung by bees but we earn the same salary as the office cleaners,” continued the worker.

Another employee, Mr David Mthombeni mentioned that he fell from a tractor while cutting a tree and sustained head injuries but he was never compensated.

“It’s not just the compensation I am concerned about, I just wish that the municipality would pay us the salary that we deserve. We want to be paid all the money they have been robbing us since 2008 or we will down tools,” he said.

They were told that the Dlamini could not address them as she was attending a ANC lekgotla and the municipality’s spokesperson, Mr Joseph Ngala apparently ignored their requests to speak to him on behalf of the mayor.

“He told us that he had nothing to say to us and that we should just go back to work and then disappeared,” Mthombeni said.

Several attempts by this publication to reach Ngala for a comment on the issue were in vain.

Watch the video of the protest here: