Tshwane services to be disrupted this week – says metro

The Tshwane metro has warned residents to possibly expect services to be disrupted on Monday.

Tshwane metro spokesperson Selby Bokaba said the metro was informing its residents to expect a possible continuation of service disruptions “tomorrow and beyond” by employees affiliated to labour union South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU).

Bokaba said this despite the metro having been granted an interim order by the Labour Court in Johannesburg on Friday, declaring the strike action by SAMWU unlawful and unprotected.

“Tshwane applied for an urgent interdict to the Labour Court on Friday after employees affiliated to SAMWU embarked on a service interruption spree, opening fire hydrants, halting trucks from collecting waste, disposing waste in some parts of the CBD and blocking buses from operating and disrupting traffic flow in the CBD.”

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He said the interim judgement had ordered that SAMWU members were interdicted and restrained from participating in the unlawful strike action, which prohibits them from performing acts of destruction of any public or private property.

He said further the court order prevented the aggrieved members from intimidating any of Tshwane’s employees, which were not partaking in their illegal strike action.

The metro said the following services are likely to be affected if the unrest continued unabated – bus operations, licencing and waste collection, especially around the CBD.

“Management will continuously assess the situation in respect of bus operations and will only release the buses when it is safe to do so as they wouldn’t want to risk the situation where our buses are used to block traffic in the CBD, neither would management want to put the lives of the drivers and commuters at risk.”

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He said other services most likely to be affected were:

-Inner City waste collection services, including public cleaning may be affected. Bokaba said waste collection to businesses and bulk waste services could also be impacted, however, “we don’t anticipate any challenges regarding domestic waste collection”.

He said waste disposal sites remained vulnerable during strike situations. “Some clinics are also likely to be affected as well, but disruptions would be minimal.”

“The City will take a hardline stance against anyone who violates the court order and will strive to ensure that its customers are not unnecessarily inconvenienced by the unprotected and unlawful strike action as declared by the Labour Court.”

Bokaba said the Metro was pinning its hopes on law enforcement to maintain law and order and to enforce compliance with the interim court order.

This comes as on Friday the metro applied for an urgent court interdict on Friday, to prevent Samwu workers from “sabotaging service delivery”, through ongoing protest action.

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Samwu had been in a tussle with the Tshwane metro for nearly three years over a benchmarking agreement that 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.

Thousands of municipal workers in Tshwane took to the street on Thursday, following a stand-off between the union and the municipality over the implementation of the salary increments and a once-off payment linked to the benchmarking collective agreement.

Samwu regional secretary Mpho Tladinyane said: “The South African Municipal Workers Union is disappointed at the conduct of the acting city manager and the executive mayor at their appetite to reverse gains registered by workers over the years.”

Tladinyane said the “appetite” was evident, noting the recent actions were over the issues of non-payment of annual once-off payment, wage and salary collective agreement implementations and the Tshwane group life scheme.

He said Tshwane and Samwu signed a collective agreement on benchmarking, in which there was a clause stating that all employees on top-notch would be paid an annual one-off payment in place of satisfactory performance.

“The metro has since applied to bargaining council to remove the clause.”

He said the South African local government bargaining (Salga-employer body) signed a collective agreement with both Samwu and another union, Imatu, in September 2021, and after that, the South African local government bargaining council advised municipalities to implement the collective agreement.

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“To date, the metro has not communicated when the agreement will be implemented and workers paid their 3.5% backdated to July 2021. Workers are demanding that the 3.5% be implemented on 26 October 2021.”

Tladinyane said the metro established the Tshwane group life scheme in favour of its employees which among others, covered funeral expenses in case of death.

“For three years or more, the scheme did not increase rates paid by the employer and recently due to Covid-19, the number of death cases increased drastically.

“Tshwane representatives on the scheme agreed that rates be increased but the mayoral committee blocked the said increase. As a result of the action benefits paid to employees have been decreased negatively affecting families of departed employees.

“Noting that local government elections will be on November 1, Samwu demands that the current administration resolve all outstanding issues so that we start on a clean slate with the new administration.”

The union gave the metro until October 25, to provide a positive response to employees’ demands.

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