JOHANNESBURG - Joburg Mayor Herman Mashaba on Thursday, announced that the City will insource 1,400 workers who were formerly employed under the municipality's Jozi@Work programme.
"Contract workers to be insourced form part of a group who lodged a long standing employment dispute with Pikitup," Mashaba said.
"While we are only able to accommodate 1,400 of the total 3,000 former employees, consisting of both Jozi@Work and 2010 contract workers, due to budget constraints from Pikitup, it must be noted that the issue is not with the number of people employed. Rather, our main priority is ensuring that fair remuneration and dignity is provided to these contract workers."
This follows a successful meeting the City held on Wednesday, with the South African Municipal Workers Unions (Samwu), Independent Municipal and Allied Trade Union (Imatu), as well as the City's waste-management entity, Pikitup, which decided that some former Jozi@Work employees would be employed directly by the City.
Mshaba said that these workers would be employed on a permanent basis and would see their earnings increase from R2,200 to R6,000 per month.
Mashaba said that this was a short-term intervention that is meant to give people dignity and value in working for the City.
Jozi@Work employees have often in the past disrupted Pikitup operations by trashing the rubbish bins in the City centre and intimidating Pikitup employees, while demanding that the City reinstates their programme.
Mshaba said that Pikitup will now apply for an exemption from the National Exemption Committee of the National Bargaining Council in order to allow for the insourcing of these former contract workers, and also undertake a verification process of those who are to be insourced.