Africa-Press – South-Africa. Johannesburg municipal workers gathered at the Constance “Connie” Bontle Bapela Council Chamber to meet with Mayor Mpho Phalatse on Friday morning, following protest action in the inner city on Thursday.
The metro was meant to hold its 12th extraordinary council meeting on Friday, but the gathering had to be paused because the leadership met with South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) members and other workers.
Phalatse’s spokesperson, Mabine Seabe, said officials in the City manager’s office – the employer in this case – and the labour relations department were in discussions about the meeting.
Workers protested in the inner city on Thursday, bringing the M1 highway to a standstill.
In a group statement on Thursday, Phalatse and the mayoral committee member for group corporate and shared services, Leah Knott, said that despite Thursday’s events, they had “agreed to sit around the negotiating table on Friday with labour unions in order to iron out issues that may still exist”.
Knott said: “We will also use the opportunity to register our anger and displeasure with the unruly behaviour of union members.”
“[Thursday’s] events cannot simply be brushed over. I will therefore be exploring the mechanisms that will empower the City to fully investigate the events of Thursday in a transparent and independent manner.”
On Thursday, City workers, under the Samwu banner, met at Library Gardens in Newtown over dissatisfaction with the Political Facilitated Agreement (PFA) of April 2016. The agreement between the City and the municipal employers was meant to regularise staff payments.
Samwu’s provincial secretary, Mpho Tladinyane, said the workers decided to go to the metro centre after meeting at Library Gardens to look for answers from their employer. They were met by acting City manager Bryne Maduka.
Tladinyane said:
Tladinyane disputed claims that the City manager had been held against his will and said he was with them on the M1.
Phalatse and her team were in Finetown to engage with informal traders and tavern owners and to visit the families of the victims of recent mass shootings.
In Thursday’s statement, the mayor and MMC said the City and labour unions would urgently meet, “following destructive and unprotected protest action across the Joburg inner city”.
According to the statement, the PFA’s primary objective was to resolve many complaints about salary disparities across the City during the 2011-2016 administration.
It was also claimed in the statement that when the DA-led government took over the metro, it found that the relationship between the City and organised labour was in a poor state “and in some instances, non-existent”.
The statement read:
“Moreover, in order to better the working conditions of officials, we have updated the locomotion allowance, which was last reviewed in 1999, meaning that City officials who use their personal vehicles in the execution of their service delivery duties were being reimbursed at 1999 petrol prices, which affected their pockets and service delivery standards.”
Meanwhile, speaker Colleen Makhubele said at the start of Friday’s council meeting that she had requests from councillors to join the forum virtually out of concern for their safety during the protest.
Security around the building had already been increased for the occasion.
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