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South Africa: Striking Municipal Workers Resume Work
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BuaNews (Tshwane)
16 May 2008
Posted to the web 16 May 2008
Edwin Tshivhidzo
Pretoria
Striking municipal workers in Tshwane resumed work on Thursday after the Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality and the South African Municipal Worker's Union (Samwu) reached an agreement to end the strike.
The weeklong strike left many bus commuters stranded and refuse was not collected in most parts of the city.
Last Monday, municipal workers belonging to SAMWU embarked on an illegal and unprotected strike demanding improved salary packages and improved labour practices, among other things.
Addressing the media on Thursday, Executive Mayor Gwen Ramokgopa said she hoped the the backlogs which came as a result of the strike would be addressed.
"I would like on behalf of the city to announce that all services should be back to normal and trust that the intimidation to other employees will be a thing of the past.
"We hope that by the Monday the city should have dealt with all the backlogs in this regard," she said.
Ms Ramokgopa assured bus commuters, who were the worst hit by the strike that bus services would be back to normal.
"We also wish to assure residents that bus services should also be back to normal operations by Monday. At that stage all workers should be back to their workstations and start transporting people," the mayor said.
With regard to the worker's grievances, the mayor said negotiations with SAMWU were continuing and that the city had already started addressing them.
"The city has long started the process of reviewing the use of labour brokers and has already dealt with the administrative section," she said.
Included in the unions' list of demands was that those workers employed by labour brokerage companies, who are contracted by the municipality, should be employed directly by the local authority.
The mayor said the current employment processes would also apply in absorbing contractual workers into the municipality.
Also as part of the agreement, the city would not take legal action against workers who had participated in the illegal strike as earlier indicated.
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During the strike the city temporary workers were employed to clean the streets which had been trashed by the striking workers.
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