Criminal charges are being laid against Johannesburg metro police who embarked on an illegal strike about overtime pay last week, metro police chief Chris Ngcobo said on Tuesday.
They will also face internal disciplinary in hearings starting next week, he said.
Ngcobo made the announcement after the Johannesburg Labour Court on Tuesday confirmed as valid for 12 months the interim interdict issued on Friday declaring the strike illegal.
”This gives us the powers to take the necessary steps,” he said.
Slamming the move as ”provocative”, the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) said it will ”go a long way to set us back on the road we thought we had already traversed”.
Samwu spokesperson Roger Ronnie warned that countrywide solidarity action to put pressure on Johannesburg cannot be ruled out.
At a press conference on Tuesday, Ngcobo said the metro police department, which receives between R300 000 and R400 000 a day in traffic fines, lost R150 000 on Wednesday, the first day of the strike.
It is still trying to calculate the total lost for all three days, claiming people who arrived to pay were intimidated by officers chanting and toyi-toying in uniform outside the operations centre on the corner of Village and Loveday streets.
The Johannesburg metro police department (JMPD) on Monday laid criminal charges against the Samwu leadership, JMPD shop stewards and other individuals who played a leading role in the strike.
These include contravening the Gatherings Act — which the JMPD is tasked with enforcing — and the Labour Relations Act.
The charges include the offence of intimidation, said Ngcobo, because police officers are not allowed to demonstrate in uniform or with weapons.
The demonstrators had been told to wear union T-shirts, he said.
”It was anarchy, generally. Those people who were there, it was anarchy.”
Ngcobo said enforcers of the law are not to be seen breaking the law or tolerating illegal actions.
On the two previous occasions when officers held illegal protests during the past five years, ”we gave them the benefit of the doubt because [Samwu] came to us to say they were sorry”, said Ngcobo.
”Now we have to take stern action,” he said adding that there are procedures to deal with grievances.
Samwu said on Tuesday it is the JMPD’s failure to follow those very procedures that led to the strike.
So far, 62 officers caught on camera playing a prominent role in the strike have been identified and will probably face both criminal and internal disciplinary action, said Ngcobo. The JMPD has until Friday to identify the rest. They will not be suspended.
Those found to have been involved to a lesser degree will face internal disciplinary hearings.
Punishment could include having their weapons removed, or being taken off vehicle patrols and placed on foot patrols.
”These people have embarrassed us in front of the public … we’d like to create a situation where ‘your peers harass you’,” he said.
Ngcobo said the JMPD will hand its evidence in the criminal cases to prosecutors on Wednesday for a decision on whether to prosecute.
He said officers who receive a sentence without the option of a fine for a criminal offence face automatic dismissal.
Dismissal of those found guilty of involvement in an illegal strike is at the discretion of presiding officers at an internal disciplinary hearing. — Sapa