Protest causes service delivery delays

Due to an ongoing protest by municipal workers owing to backpay delays, refuse has not been collected in Ray Nkonyeni Municipality (RNM).

The last council meeting for the year was held at the RNM council chambers on Tuesday last week, where a councillor raised the issue of the uncollected refuse and demanded an explanation.

The mayor, Zodwa Mzindle, said she had nothing to report back to council as yet.

While the council was in session, some of the workers stood outside demanding their six months backpay.

The protest has disrupted service delivery to communities of RNM for about three weeks.

Mthandeni Ndwalane, the HOD of Community Services, was asked to come up with a plan to collect refuse with skeleton staff.

The workers started protesting on their own without their union, the SA Municipal Workers Union (Samwu), just over a week ago. A meeting was held with the union leadership at the Port Shepstone Civic Centre, but they did not reach a consensus.

The workers feel that Samwu has its own agreement with the municipality without informing them. They also believe that the union has been ‘paid a bribe’ to agree to a three month payment plan instead of six months.

This was stated after the Samwu leadership did not join the ongoing protest, saying that they are in talks with RNM to find a way forward.

RNM speaker Phumlani Gumbi said the workers are now on an illegal protest as they are not doing so under their union.

Gumbi said meetings have been held with Samwu’s leadership and relevant RNM departments to pay the workers.

“Our engagements have been fruitful, but it’s also surprising to see some workers sitting outside the municipality offices every day.”

Gumbi said that the matter has now turned political and is not so much about the workers’ issues.

“Samwu leaders have not joined in as they know where we stand. We understand that things have not happened as expected, but this does not mean people should sit outside the municipal offices all the time.”

He said he will not address anyone on the matter other than Samwu.

Samwu’s chairperson, Hakeem Sibisi, said there was a rift between the union leadership and the workers.

“The problem started when we didn’t have a general meeting, and that’s when the workers thought we were selling them out. The workers who are currently protesting are with a task team that they selected, which is not a structure of Samwu.”

Sibisi said he cannot confirm Gumbi’s statements as there is no agreement between them and the municipality, either in writing or verbal.

“The workers need to remain calm because what they are doing can cause more problems for them; we need to be united again so that we can move forward.”

He said Samwu plans to meet with the workers’ task team so they can iron out issues and move on as one.

A special council is also expected to convene soon to resolve the issue.

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