Metro staff stage picket to highlight grievances
Hundreds gather in front of city hall to demand allowances they say are owed to them
MUNICIPAL workers downed tools for at least three hours yesterday as hundreds of them picketed in front of the Port Elizabeth City Hall. Members of the South African Municipal Workers Union parked their refuse trucks behind the old post office building and held a general meeting at Vuyisile Mini Square.
The workers are demanding various allowance payments which they say are due to them.
These include a longservice bonus which they want back-dated to 2000, a risk allowance and an hour overtime payment for those working through their lunch break.
The municipality, however, said the gathering by its staff yesterday had not been authorised and that issues raised by the workers were under discussion by management and unions.
City manager Johann Mettler said they had declined permission for the union to hold the meeting, but it had got permission from the chief magistrate.
“The normal HR processes will be applied in respect of those staff members who absented themselves from work without prior permission,” he said.
It was not clear if any services had been interrupted by the meeting, he said.
Addressing the workers yesterday, Samwu regional chairwoman Nomvula Hadi said the coalition government had promised to do things differently but had failed.
“In [our] first meeting with the mayor [Athol Trollip] he said this administration would make sure we operated within the parameters of the law,” she said.
“They are as equally corrupt as the previous administration. We will show
We will show you the corruption . . . This council is an animal farm
you the corruption of this administration. This council is an animal farm.”
She said the city had enough money to pay acting corporate services head Vuyo Zitumane R1.6-million a year, yet it did not have enough money to pay allowances to workers.
She alleged that Zitumane’s contract had ended and the city was outsourcing her company Lokodisa to head the corporate services department.
But Mettler said: “There is absolutely no truth to the assertion of the so-called outsourcing of corporate services to this company.
“Vuyo Zitumane has a contract with this metro in her private capacity.”
Hadi also lambasted the city’s implementation of mSCOA (Municipal Standard Chart of Accounts), alleging that some officials were being paid a special bonus for working on the programme.
mSCOA is a new accounting system being implemented by the city and will start working in July.
“They owe workers long-service bonus money from 2000 and say there is no money, but they are giving people who work on mSCOA R10-million,” she said.
Mettler said the council had authorised a once-off allowance to compensate officials who went beyond their call of duty to make sure the city complied with mSCOA by July.
“There are set criteria and a sliding scale of remuneration based on seniority,” he said.
“An amount of R9.5-million was budgeted for the current financial year, after which it will cease.”
Hadi said the city’s decision to scrap the completion bonus – an incentive allowance previously in place – without solving how to compensate them for working throughout their lunch hour was a problem.
“We had an agreement with [Trollip] on the issue of the one hour overtime worked by refuse collectors, and he said it must be solved within the parameters of the law,” she said.
“You can’t be selective on the legality of this bonus.
“It is also illegal to utilise workers and not allow them to take lunch.”