Pretoria - The SA Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) has denied signing off on the ongoing strike action in the City of Tshwane, now in its seventh week.
According to the union, there was no strike action going on in the capital city.
Instead, the union cried victim as the salary dispute with the metro continues (with striking workers), blaming municipal management for the protests.
The employees have downed their tools over a 5.4% implementation of a wage agreement deal with the city.
However, the city has since announced it could not afford a wage increment and unsuccessfully applied to the SA Local Government Bargaining Council for exemption.
Responding to questions at a briefing this week after the dismissal of the city’s application to the SA Local Government Bargaining Council, the Samwu president Nelson Makgotho denied being part of the strike that turned violent and hampered service delivery in recent weeks.
“We have indicated that Samwu did not sanction any strike. There was no strike in Tshwane.
“Our own member was shot and there is no way that Samwu could go and fight its own members. City management and the political authority in Tshwane were not able to manage this process and people were going to hijack the entire process and the blame was put on Samwu.
“But Samwu can’t take responsibility. Thuggery and criminality should be taken away from Samwu. The police should do their work and if it’s found that a Samwu member was involved the law must take its cause,” Makgotho said.
The union’s general secretary, Dumisane Magagula, mirrored his president’s assertions, blaming the city for services not delivered.
“In the past few weeks we have been going to Tshwane over and over again under the leadership of Samwu.
“At the bus depot we found workers sitting and playing chess and all sorts of games, even inventing other games because of boredom. But they were bored within the yard of the municipality and management was sitting with keys of the buses that the city withdrew,” said Magagula.
He said metro management had withdrawn city buses two days before the union marched over the wage increments.
“On July 24, before July 26 when we marched, the management had already withdrawn the buses.
“We only heard this morning (Tuesday) that they are releasing buses. But that’s just one example to show that the workers are at work but management is withholding tools of trade,” he said.
Magagula was referring to the city’s decision to resume bus services on Tuesday morning only to be disrupted by the ongoing protests.
He further accused the city of barricading premises so that workers were not able to access their places of work.
Magagula also denied that the union was planning more strike action after the city lost its exemption bid at the SA Local Government Bargaining Council .
He added: “We are involved in a legal process. The outcome of the exemption is not a certificate to go on a strike. Salary increments are based on a collective agreement which has been signed.
“There are processes provided for implementation or to enforce implementation of the collective agreement that we will embark on.
“But at the same time we are a trade union and we will be engaging our workers on what will happen next.”
Pretoria News