Durban - Water and Sanitation Unit employees are the latest to down tools in protest against eThekwini Municipality’s move to reduce overtime pay.
The staff gathered outside the unit head offices in Prior Road yesterday waiting to be addressed by their managers.
“The matter is about overtime pay,” said a source.
“There are hundreds of them parked at the department’s offices with their vehicles,” he said.
The Water and Sanitation Unit is the third municipal department to down tools since August after the city implemented a new overtime policy that imposed drastic cuts on the overtime pay that workers can claim.
The Durban Solid Waste Unit (DSW) was the first to embark on the strike and was later followed by the Electricity Unit a few days ago.
The city said the overtime budget of the different units should be reduced by 50% and that the number of hours of overtime the workers can work should be limited to the legal 40 hours a month.
The city said it is concerned about the amount being claimed for overtime pay. In the DSW case for instance, there have been revelations that some workers were claiming as much as 200 hours of overtime per month and tripling their salaries in the process.
DA councillor Mzamo Billy described the strikes as concerning.
“We are aware of the strike that took place today (Thursday) which is about overtime pay.
“This appears to be a problem that is suddenly emerging in all trading services departments. The municipality took a very deliberate decision to cut overtime budget by 50% and this came into effect on August 1, 2022.
“The head of the department, Mr Ednick Msweli and the entire leadership of the municipality must enforce in a fair way the council decision, going forward. We encourage workers and unions to put the people of this city first and respect efforts to do things in a lawful and acceptable manner,” said Billy.
IFP councillor Mdu Nkosi said the strikes over overtime were becoming a nuisance.
“It is clear that the workers are now heavily reliant on overtime pay to do other things and can no longer live on their salaries, which should not be the case.
“It is improper for the workers to strike as they should engage their unions to engage the city. The city management should deal with this issue, we cannot have the continuous strikes over overtime,” he said.
Nkosi urged that workers should also be reasonable.
“They should remember that the reason we are here (cutting overtime budget) is because some of them were abusing overtime, they were putting in claims which suggest they have been on duty for 24 hours and they had never slept,” he said.
“What is happening now is that the workers are putting their families above everyone else,” he said.
Municipal spokesperson, Msawakhe Mayisela said the city was addressing the matter.
“The city is currently engaging with the employees. The city has made a resolution to reduce overtime hours, and we stand by that resolution. However, as a caring city, we are hoping for a successful engagement,” said Mayisela.