Matusa condemns abuse of women at Govan Mbeki Municipality
Kurt Ziervogel, the union general secretary, mentioned three cases of alleged abuse.
The Municipal and Allied Trade Union of South Africa (Matusa) condemns the alleged abuse of women at Govan Mbeki Municipality (GMM).
In a statement from Matusa last week, they claimed women employed at the municipality who complained about alleged inappropriate conduct by men in senior positions are now facing secondary victimisation.
Kurt Ziervogel, the union general secretary, mentioned three cases of alleged abuse. Ziervogel said a male manager allegedly emotionally and verbally abused one woman.
He also allegedly assassinated her character and ridiculed the female employee in front of the other male senior officials.
“All of them then made fun of her with no one coming to her rescue,” said Ziervogel.
Another woman working in a different department was allegedly sexually abused by a male manager.
According to Ziervogel, the manager allegedly made sexual advances and uttered sexually explicit and unbecoming words which made the employee uncomfortable.
“When the employee lodged a grievance in terms of the applicable grievance procedure as provided by Section 13 of the Main Collective Agreement, the management of the municipality responsible for attending to the employee’s grievances not only failed to attend to the grievance, but all rallied to defend the culprit manager.
“They ignored her grievance but instead provided spurious allegations and suspended the employee. The union sees this as a clear act of secondary victimisation,” said Ziervogel.
Ziervogel claimed a third employee also lodged a grievance about alleged abuse by a male manager. She was allegedly also severely secondary victimised.
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They charged this woman with misconduct. He said the charges are based on unsubstantiated allegations.
Ziervogel alleges that while this woman was waiting to hear about her misconduct case, she was also threatened with suspension.
“A precautionary suspension set down notice was issued to her even after they instituted charges of misconduct against her.”
Ziervogel said the union is concerned that this particular woman was used and she played along with the hope of getting a promotion, which never came.
He believes that women in management at GMM are complicit in the abuse of female employees because they are not sensitive to the plight of women who are abused.
“Sexual harassment and gender abuse are predominant in the municipality and mostly perpetrated by male chauvinists in positions of power.
“It is, therefore, not surprising that even when women use formal legal procedures to raise their concerns, the men with power simply ignore their cries and instead intimidate them with suspensions and disciplinary hearings to silence them from pursuing grievances lodged,” Ziervolgel said.
Ziervogel calls on all employees in the municipality to forge unity and solidarity in confronting this scourge and ensure that victims get justice.
He said Matusa is committed to fighting against female oppression and abuse. The municipality’s communications department responded by saying that they had noted Matusa’s media statement.
“Sexual harassment is a serious matter and must be promptly dealt with. The municipality requested the union to provide more clarity on these cases to enable an effective investigation following the relevant municipal policies.
“GMM has a zero-tolerance policy towards all forms of harassment and seeks to provide an environment free of any form of harassment.”
