REFILWE MEKOA
Metsimaholo Municipal employees said they have been resilient with an employer who doesn’t show interest to resolve their issues.
The South African Municipality Workers’ Union in Sasolburg said their recent strike was not unprotected and illegal. On Monday morning municipal workers ended their four-day strike. According to Samwu’s Free State Secretary they will be going back to municipal officials to engage on issues that they think the municipality hasn’t showed interest in.
He said so far members agreed to suspend the strike and to comply with the court order. Magagula stated that in March this year there was a mediation process and the mediator’s outcome stated by 30 June if the matter wasn’t resolved by the municipality, Samwu may go on strike.
“The union clarified with the mediator that they don’t accept the outcome because it not cover all the things that were raised by employees. The judge of the labour court firstly agreed that issues that were raised by the employees are genuine, though he didn’t want to focus on making a ruling on those issues. The judge only concentrated on the notice to strike, which, according to him was in compliance with section 64 and 65,” he said.
Metsimaholo has been hit by a number of strikes and service delivery protests from the previous year. In January last year four people were killed when residents protested against a proposal to integrate the Metsimaholo and Ngwathe municipalities and in February the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) went on a five-day strike demanding pay parity. In July last year two Metsimaholo Municipal buildings were torched.
