Striking workers cause chaos in J-Bay
SERVICES were thrown into disarray yesterday as striking Kouga municipal workers downed tools, trashed a building and left piles of rubbish in the streets of Jeffreys Bay.
All municipal staff were evacuated from the main municipal building, in Da Gama Street, early yesterday as the strike entered its second day.
A gate was destroyed and windows were smashed at the municipal building, while buckets of sewage were dumped at the traffic department building in Humansdorp.
Members of the SA Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) embarked on a strike on Monday after the contracts of 74 temporary workers came to an end last month.
They want the contracts of the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) workers to be extended for another three months.
The protesting workers are also demanding that councillors be excluded from recruitment panels when conducting interviews.
Samwu shop steward Siphiwo Mkosana said they did not agree with the municipality’s stance on EPWP workers’ contracts.
“We want those workers to be given a three-month extension of their contracts,” Mkosana said.
The union also wanted safer employment conditions, job evaluations with clear job descriptions and speeding up of the job grading process.
Mkosana accused Kouga mayor Elza van Lingen of not keeping her promises.
“When she was still campaigning, she raised the issue of temporary workers in parliament but now she has become a mayor, she’s the one terminating their contracts.”
Van Lingen denied this, saying that in parliament she had been referring to ambulance workers in Humansdorp.
She said EPWP contracts could not be renewed because people were employed on a rotational basis.
“We are sticking with what the law says. Those workers . . . knew their contracts would come to an end at the end of February and there is another group waiting for their cycle.”
The municipality has applied for a court interdict and the matter will be heard at labour court this morning.
But Samwu says it has instructed its lawyers to oppose.
It said its members would continue with the protest, but would comply with the outcome of the interdict.