Lisa Isaacs
ABOUT 5 000 municipal workers are set to strike today and services like water and sanitation, health and waste removal will be hardest hit. The city has, however, said contingency plans will be in place to lessen the impact.
“We are aware the strike may be protracted and want to ensure minimal service disruption. Additional staff members are available to fill in shifts,” Mayco member for corporate services Xanthea Limberg said.
She added that while the city appealed to essential service workers such as fire services, health care and metro police to not stay away from work, call centre workers were expected to strike and late-shift workers asked to fill in day shifts.
“We will be setting up an operation centre which will monitor CCTV cameras for any destruction to infrastructure as a result of the strike action.”
Samwu served the city with a strike notice last month. It was initially served in October, but suspended for 90 days when the city committed to resolving grievances.
Some of the grievances were line managers not being held to account when they breached city policies; the shift system changing with no consultation; workers being dismissed when raising issues; no transformation employment equity taking place in many departments; and members being victimised.
The city said many grievances have been addressed through extensive engagement with Samwu since June last year and talks had continued last month.
But Samwu regional secretary Mike Khumalo said the union was not satisfied with the city’s resolution attempts. “We have tried to resolve grievances but are not satisfied with the progress...
(and) while the strike would cause inconvenience to citizens, the city needs to address the demands.”
Limberg said, however, that after major progress was made, the city did not believe there was a basis for the strike.