Nineteen Metrobus employees who were dismissed during a recent strike could still face disciplinary action, the City of Johannesburg said on Thursday.
City manager Mavela Dlamini said he had asked for a ”quick report” to determine whether the employees’ transgressions matched the action taken by the city. He said he would receive the report by the close of business on Thursday.
The two-month strike was called off on Wednesday after an agreement was signed by the municipality, the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) and the Independent Municipal and Allied Trade Union.
The bus service, which was suspended on March 16 after three drivers were murdered, will resume on Tuesday.
Dlamini said the financial cost of the strike have not been calculated. ”We have not done the costs … our primary focus was to resolve the strike.” The costs will be noted in the quarterly financial report.
He said the police are making progress in their investigations into the violence that erupted during the strike. ”We have been given reasonable assurance from the police the environment is safe,” he said.
Three bus drivers were murdered and 21 violent incidents had been recorded since the strike started on January 29.
Metrobus MD Bheki Shongwe said 188 employees started striking, but the number ”dwindled down” to 80 and remained the same until the bus service was suspended over safety concerns for drivers and commuters.
Union members went on strike on January 29 to protest over pay, sick leave and the dismissal of 19 employees.
Samwu’s Johannesburg branch chairperson, Moatlhodi Mongale, said on Wednesday that Samwu was ”happy with the agreement and the outcome and want to congratulate the city manager for providing leadership when he was required to do so”.
He said the city and Samwu agreed on reinstating three shop stewards and 19 employees. The shop stewards, who were ”unprocedurally” dismissed, would be reinstated and given a final written warning.
Mongale said the 1999 conditions of service would be reinstated for six months — until October — to deal with the disputed matter of accrued sick leave. Under the old City of Johannesburg employment conditions, which were changed in 2005, employees who had worked for more than 15 years could cash in their accrued sick-leave days.
According to the agreement signed on Wednesday, that clause — offered to employees who qualified for it before 2005 — would be reinstated until October, but the employees would then have to resign.
Councillor Rehana Moosajee, a member of the mayoral committee on transport, said she hoped a ”safe service would resume on Tuesday”.
She said Metrobus’s reaction to the deaths of three of its drivers ”who were killed in the line of duty” was a human response.
Shongwe said Metrobus would pay all the victims’ burial costs and provide trauma counselling for their families. — Sapa