Hazel Friedman
A ROW has erupted in the Greater Johannesburg
Transitional Metropolitan Council (TMC) following furious demands by the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) that a moratorium be placed on all new appointments to local government. The TMC refuses to abide by the moratorium.
This comes in the wake of the appointment of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature’s Victor Modise to the position of Johannesburg Director of Culture over the head of Christopher Till. Till lodged an official objection against the selection procedure on Tuesday, but was defeated. The union has threatened to take its complaints to “the constitutional structures”.
In a strange reversal of affirmative action roles, the mainly black Samwu South Africa’s largest municipal union is championing the cause of Till, a white, old-guard employee over his black successor.
The secretary for the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan branch of Samwu, Weizmann Hamilton, insists that the union’s demand has nothing to do with the Till-Modise tussle. He says it is the result of “hasty, unbalanced appointments to the metropolitan sub-structures” and the “flagrant transgression by the TMC of international labour principles”.
The conflict began in May this year when advertisements appeared in the press calling for new appointments to local government. This was implemented in accordance with the TMC’s restructuring plans.
“As a union, we are based on the universally accepted principles that when government posts are advertised, internal staff must get preference”, explained Hamilton.
“But the TMC argued that to recruit from within existing structures would amount to perpetuating the racial imbalances of apartheid. So we reached a compromise. In terms of a compromise agreement ratified by the Johannesburg Interim Industrial Council in 1995, Samwu and the TMC agreed that new appointments would happen “simultaneously through internal circulation and external advertising”. According to Hamilton, the council has since ignored the agreement and has unilaterally made hasty appointments for their “pals” or from outside without consulting the union.
“The process has been bewilderingly fast,” says Hamilton. “Also, there is growing dissatisfaction from within the TMC, which will have severe repercussions for the future effectiveness of local government if the problem is not dealt with now.”
Until October 31 all employees of the metropolitan substructures will remain under the TMC. After that the metro sub-structures will become the local authorities with the TMC serving as a co-ordinating body.
But employees within the TMC fear that there will be no clear distinction between provincial and local duties, and that the structures will become top heavy and burdened with an overloaded bureaucracy.
“We’ve got a situation where due to the sense of urgency there is an unnecessary doubling and tripling of duties between provincial and local authorities with no one knowing who really does what,” says a TMC staffer who wishes to remain anonymous.
‘The other problem is that while we favour affirmative-action practices, a lot of provincial government employees who have already benefited from these policies are being rolled into local government and loyal TMC employees are being shoved aside. Some people are called to posts without having to apply.”
He adds: “If the situation does not improve, Johannesburg will have a metropolitan mutiny on its hands.”