Striking municipal workers have vowed to escalate their strike in response to management’s alleged decision to employ scab labour. Speaking on Thursday the local leader of the strikers, Wandile Bikitsha, claimed the municipality had brought in casual labourers to clean up the streets after they were strewn with rubbish earlier in the week.
Striking municipal workers have vowed to escalate their strike in response to management’s alleged decision to employ scab labour. Speaking on Thursday the local leader of the strikers, Wandile Bikitsha, claimed the municipality had brought in casual labourers to clean up the streets after they were strewn with rubbish earlier in the week.
Members of the South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) began their strike on Monday after national wage negotiations failed. A day into the protest workers marched through Grahamstown, chanting and dumping rubbish on the streets – a feature of their protest action since then.
On Thursday a slightly smaller group than had been seen on the streets in previous days assembled outside the City Hall. They watched as Bikitsha and other union leaders marched inside, demanding to meet with the mayor, municipal manager, and city council in order to voice their concerns.
However, Bikitsha and his colleagues emerged unsuccessful a few minutes later, as city brass were engaged in other meetings. Workers decided to return later and in the meantime set off on a march around town to pull their members from various municipal departments.
They gathered support from essential service departments, including fire and traffic, as well as finance and the library. Along the way, members continued to throw rubbish in the streets, even taking a detour to the dump site to ensure that they would have sufficient garbage to leave a message at the door of every department.
Increasing the scale of labour action by including staff from departments providing essential services is an about-turn from an undertaking made by Samwu provincial education officer Thobile Maso only the day before.
Speaking to Grocott’s Mail on Wednesday he said that while Samwu opposed any move by the municipality to augment a skeleton staff with outside workers, the union would not cut off essential services. The apparent upswing in tension on Thursday came as a sharp contrast to Wednesday’s atmosphere, when Samwu leaders handed a memorandum of wage dispute to the Makana Executive Mayor Zamuxolo Peter.
There had been no sign of vuvuzelas or placards outside the city hall and it appeared the protest might be reaching some kind of resolution. The memorandum, read by Bikitsha in front of a large and approving crowd, called on the mayor to communicate Samwu’s grievances to the South African Local Government Association (Salga), the national body with which Samwu is negotiating.
Strikers also wanted the municipality not to award excessive wage increases to senior management, urged the mayor to address the high allowances enjoyed by councillors and said the municipality should support workers in their bid for wage increases.
A ban on labour brokers and municipal respect for collective action were also called for in the memorandum. A Samwu member offered his back to support the memorandum as the mayor signed receipt of the document and, after a few chants praising the rights of workers, Mayor Peter told the crowd that the municipality had heard what they had to say. “I will try and address your issues,” he promised.
Speaking after his address, which he ended by joining the workers in song, Peter said: “Samwu is currently in negotiations with Salga. We as the municipality will be bound by the decisions made by the leaders in that meeting.”
Peter added: “We will try to talk to the various districts and reach out to Salga so that a speedy resolution can come to this matter.” However, Salga’s provincial labour relations manager, Lulama Thaleni, later cautioned that it might not be so easy to resolve the situation. He said Samwu had given an “indefinite” strike notice, warning it would not be withdrawn until the workers demands had been met.
In addition, provincial Salga offices had not been briefed by their national counterparts on how negotiations were proceeding. Given the uncertainty prevailing at the time of going to press, it appears that strike action could well stretch into a second week.
Certainly, local Samwu members have not yet shown any signs of fatigue as they parade through the streets. Aside from ripping open rubbish bags, members sang songs on Thursday with lyrics such as “You are trying to stop the impossible”, “We don’t care for any other matter – we are here for war”, and “This land belongs to communists – we will never run out of power”.
One Samwu member in the crowd voiced his outrage at the government’s recent R2.4 billion bailout of Swaziland, with a small hand-written sign that read simply, “How dare…” with the figure underneath. This was the only open individual expression of opinion from Samwu members, who had been explicitly instructed not to speak with the media.
Police have kept a eye on the protests all week and with action likely to continue, SAPS spokeswoman Captain Mali Govender said they would remain vigilant. “Police are monitoring the strike, and should there be any criminal activity they will take appropriate action,” she said yesterday.
She said it was impractical to arrest all the strikers for throwing rubbish in the streets and that there had been no serious incidents so far.
