Temporary workers’ contracts terminated
This was a six-month contract which started on November 25 last year; however, due to Covid-19, the project had to stop until July, when they started working again.
Four of the 10 temporary workers’, who have been working at Pikitup Robertsham construction site, contracts have been terminated by Epic Engineering Pty (Ltd) on October 12.
They were tasked to do construction of a sorting facility, guardhouse and storage compartments at Robertsham integrated waste facility (drop-off centre), corner of Harry Street and Rifle Range Road.
This was a six-month contract which started on November 25 last year; however, due to Covid-19, the project had to stop until July, when they started working again.
Thomas Sejane, Nonkululeko Mtshungane, Timothy McKuur and Yoliswa Duma were all released of their duties on October 12.
Sejane said there were lots of dissatisfaction from their side and that led to their contracts being terminated.
“At first, we wanted to find out from the employer about our temporary employer relief scheme money for May and June. We had meetings back and forth but it yielded no positive results. “We then took the matter to Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration.
This is when we learnt the employer said we must cancel the complaint otherwise the site will be closed and we’ll subsequently lose our jobs.
“We didn’t, so we were given termination letters,” he said.
The company said: “The employees in question filed their issue at CCMA and the case was dismissed because the contracts for these employees were supposed to end on June 30. These employees were hired as temporary employees to work on the Robertsham site and work on that site is coming to an end.”
The COURIER spoke to the company and these are some of the questions and answers:
The four workers whose contracts were terminated want to know when will they get their May and June TERS money?
The company has made all the required applications and submissions to UIF. We are unable to tell when UIF will pay out.
Why were there only four people’s contracts terminated whereas they were 10 when they were first hired?
The nature of temporary employment is that people are engaged to meet certain workloads. As the work decreases due to project progress, the number of temporary employees is also scaled down.
Is it because they took their matter to CCMA? Apparently, there was a rumour that if they don’t drop the charges at CCMA, they will be fired and they were fired subsequently. The CLO was not involved in this rumour.
The termination of the employee contracts has nothing to do with them going to the CCMA. All 10 employees reported the company to the CCMA.
Their contract was supposed to be extended because of Covid-19 but instead was terminated, why?
Covid-19 has no bearing on extension of contracts. Refer to response two.
There was a problem with safety, such as the PPE, being a concern. They said they were not given enough sanitiser.
Adequate PPE was issued to all employees. Sufficient sanitiser is always available on site. If there was any issue pertaining to PPE, the client would never have given us the greenlight to resume operations after lockdown.
Their boss is always in quarantine when they want to solve problems?
The company employs people to manage the various construction sites and they are mandated to solve any problems arising from their operations.
