Tshwane municipal workers end strike pending election outcome

Municipal workers union Samwu says it has ended its strike until a new Tshwane administration is in place following Monday’s local government elections.

Last month, mayor Randall Williams applied for a successful court application for the union to halt its illegal strike and force municipal workers to go back to work, after service delivery in the city was affected for weeks.

The strike followed a three-year-long fight with the metro over a benchmarking agreement and a once-off payment linked to the benchmarking collective agreement.

This agreement was reached between the two parties at the bargaining council to adjust salaries of workers in line with a category 10 status acquired by the municipality in 2017.

“There is no strike and no services are affected,” Tshwane metro spokesperson Lindela Mashigo told Rekord earlier this week.

Tshwane bus services resumed normal operations after it had been suspended for weeks.

“Both Tshwane buses and A Re Yeng buses are back in action.”

He said Samwu and its members were interdicted from any destruction of private or public Tshwane property.

Mashigo said union members were interdicted from intimidating non-striking metro employees and patrons.

“Samwu has also issued an instruction calling on employees to be at work and perform their duties.”

He said the “no work, no pay” principle would apply to any employees not reporting for duty.

Samwu confirmed it has encouraged its employees to go back to work.

The union assured its members that the election’s outcome would go a long way in resolving workers’ “challenges” related to pending salary increase payments, group life issues and a once-off payment.

“It may take between 7-14 days to have a proper sitting of the council in which a wage and salary report will be presented,” it said.

“The administration committed to the matter being tabled. Once a proper mandate is secured, implementation will follow. We thus ask members to exercise some patience in the matter.”