Ten thousand municipal workers in Johannesburg will down tools for three days starting on Monday, the South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) said.
The Johannesburg Labour Court on Friday overruled the city’s application for an interdict to prevent the strike. The decision was made on the basis that the city had not complied with a five-day notice period.
”We had served the city with a 12-day notice that we will go on action. They should have responded on Monday to our notice,” said Samwu’s Johannesburg branch secretary Dumisani Langa on Friday.
The strike was the result of Samwu’s dispute with the city over wages, transport, performance management systems and permanent contracts.
The city filed an application on Wednesday night for an interdict to prevent the industrial action.
City of Johannesburg spokesperson Gabu Tugwana said they were ready for the strike.
”We have contingency plans in place. We expect municipal-owned entities like buses and garbage collections to go on normally. They have not been served with [strike] notices,” he said.
”The employer claims that the strike should be stopped because Samwu has never negotiated with them on some of the issues. Yet we have been negotiating with them for more than five years,” said Langa.
”The city introduced a system of three different salary levels for every grade, without consulting Samwu. As a result, many long-serving workers are earning less than newly appointed workers.”
He said bosses used their discretion as to what salaries workers were appointed on and this appeared to be linked to nepotism.
The union was also demanding the re-instatement of yearly notch increases and transport for workers to-and-from work on municipal buses.
Langa said this had been terminated without consultation, which had caused ”great hardship” to workers. – Sapa