Dozens of construction workers converged on Durban’s Moses Mabhida 2010 Soccer World Cup stadium on Monday to continue their labour protest over wage disputes.
The strike action began last Wednesday.
While the protesting continued, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said it was awaiting a date from the Labour Court so that the dispute could be taken to a new level.
”We are busy applying for a secondary strike with the Labour Court,” NUM’s provincial organiser and chief negotiator, Msi Poswa said on Monday.
”If we go to court and win the matter, we will summon other construction workers from other 2010 stadiums across the country to join in the strike … that’s about 50 000 workers,” he said.
The union threatened to cripple the construction of stadiums unless there was progress in resolving the dispute over wage and bonuses.
”Group Five has still not approached us with any further negotiating … we are still waiting,” Poswa said.
The construction consortium’s KwaZulu-Natal managing director Craig Jessop said he was concerned about the violence after two security guards were chased out of the complex by strikers last week.
”We made our position clear to them and we will not be meeting with them again for any negotiations,” Jessop said last week.
He was not immediately available for comment on Monday.
The union is demanding bonuses of R1 500 a month, payment of the minimum wage required in the civil engineering sector, and the election of its own safety compliance officer instead of the 15 officers provided by the consortium.
The stadium is being built by a consortium consisting of Group Five and WBHO.
On Thursday, the consortium obtained an interdict preventing workers from entering the stadium construction site.
The interdict prohibited strikers from coming within 50m of the entrance to the building site, unless they wished to tender their services in terms of their contracts of employment.
On Monday, police in riot gear again cordoned off the 50m area so that striking workers did not contravene the court order.
The interdict also prohibited unlawful acts and empowered the police to arrest anyone who did not comply. – Sapa