The Ekurhuleni municipality intends to charge all municipal workers and shop stewards who embarked on “illegal activities” during a recent strike, just four days into the World Cup.
Municipal spokesperson Zweli Dlamini said on Monday that workers were warned that disciplinary action would be taken against anyone involved in any unlawful action during the strike in April.
“There was gross misconduct on the part of the striking employees, who among other things vandalised council property, intimidated and assaulted fellow colleagues and contractors of the council, damaged municipal vehicles including the burning of ambulances in Boksburg,” said Dlamini.
He said the municipality had kept a record of all the incidents and after the strike, the information was consolidated so the culprits could be identified and charged.
“So far, we have charged workers for intimidation, use of council vehicles to transport strikers and misconduct, among others. Others are even facing criminal charges.”
Dlamini said seven shop stewards who stormed into a council meeting and disrupted it, forcing the speaker to postpone the meeting, had already been charged.
The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) warned the council against instituting any action without prior engagement with the union, but Dlamini said this had already been done.
Some of the issues raised at the time by the shop stewards included the wasteful expenditure of public funds by senior officials, building of internal capacity to improve service delivery and strengthening relations between organised labour and the employer.
“They have been praying that the shop stewards disappear during the Fifa Soccer World Cup…,” said Samwu spokesperson Koena Ramotlou.
Ramotlou said the municipality would be wasting more money in hiring lawyers to handle disciplinary cases just before July 1, when the new collective agreement came into effect.
He said that in this year’s budget speech, mayor Ntombi Mekgwe spoke about cutting costs and tightening the finances.
“This approach of giving cases to lawyers means that they are instead adamant about wasting ratepayer’s money,” charged Ramotlou.
However, Dlamini said the municipality was within its rights to use external lawyers as per the existing disciplinary procedure collective agreement.
He said the new collective agreement stated that “any disciplinary steps that commenced prior to the effective date shall be regulated by the terms of the then existing disciplinary code”.
“Samwu’s allegations are baseless and without any substance. The municipality will never tolerate any act of misconduct and as such will continue to discipline workers involved in such.” — Sapa