Hundreds of members of the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) were arrested on Thursday after invading the Nelson Mandela 2010 Stadium in Port Elizabeth, the union said.
Branch chairperson Nomvula Hadi, who was also arrested, said workers were leaving the stadium when police opened fire with rubber bullets and teargas, and then arrested them.
Speaking to the South African Press Association from a cell, Hadi said they had not yet been charged.
Hadi said provincial chairperson David Toyise, who was dismissed by the council in January this year, was also arrested.
Siphiwo Ndunyana, Samwu provincial secretary, said the council had tried, and failed, to get an interdict against the strike.
”There is no reason for the police therefore to open fire on us and teargas us. Our strike is legal. In a democratic South Africa we don’t expect this from the police,” he said.
About a thousand Samwu members occupied the partly built Nelson Mandela 2010 stadium in a bid to force the council to meet its demands.
”The union decided to take this step after a special mayoral committee refused to meet Samwu’s demands on Wednesday,” said Ndunyana.
He said the committee told the union to meet with the human resources department of the city, with which it had previously failed to reach an agreement.
The union has demanded that the council withdraw its recruitment policy, that it reinstate provincial chairperson Toyise and that the council address the health crisis.
It said there was only one permanent staff member at each clinic in the Metro. All other nurses and clinic staff were on month-to-month contracts.
Samwu had vowed to occupy the stadium until all its demands were met.
The Mbuyiselo Ngwenda District of the South African Communist Party (SACP) in the Eastern Cape has called on both the mayor, Nondumiso Maphazi, and the municipal manager, Graham Richards, to resign or be dismissed because they do not have capacity to lead the municipality
District secretary Zukile Jodwana said the SACP supported the strike by municipal workers and would continue to mobilise communities to show solidarity with them and to join them when they went on strike.
”As the SACP we believe that comrade Toyise’s dismissal was politically motivated and is part of a broader agenda to deal with all worker leaders who are critical of the manner in which the municipality is conducting itself, in particular those who are communist.”
The Nelson Mandela Bay Metro council could not be reached for comment. – Sapa