IT’S SABOTAGE, SAYS TROLLIP
Water cuts deliberate, he claims, amid dispute over pay for overtime work
TAKE it or leave it – this is the choice facing Nelson Mandela Bay municipal employees unwilling to work overtime. Following a weekend when thousands in the city were left without water – which mayor Athol Trollip has attributed to sabotage – Trollip said those not willing to work overtime should find other jobs.
The municipality and its workers are caught in a standoff, with workers demanding that they be paid according to a long-standing collective agreement rather than a new overtime policy.
As a result, no workers were available to restore water – which the municipality alleges was systematically shut off in eight wards – over the weekend.
Trollip, who described it as “an act of sabotage compounded by political meddling”, said a criminal complaint had been laid.
With no water flowing in parts of the city, tankers had to be brought in to some of the affected areas, with water only restored on Monday morning.
“Systematically, one ward after another in predominantly township [areas] ran out of water and our telephones started ringing,” Trollip said yesterday.
“It became clear on Saturday that there was a systematic outage of water and, on Saturday evening, we discovered a number of valves in the Govan Mbeki [Township] region had been turned off. “Valves don’t turn themselves off.” Trollip said their suspicions were confirmed when the water flow was restored shortly after workers reported for work at 10am on Monday.
“All they did was to simply turn the water on,” he said.
“It is a constitutional offence to shut water [off].
“Those people who work for the city, and whose job it is to make sure that people get water and that the lights are on, if they are not prepared to do that they will have to find a job elsewhere.”
The new policy, passed at a May 23 council meeting, came into effect at exactly 23.59pm on Sunday.
The policy states employees working on weekends and public holidays will be compensated in monetary terms (normal working rates) or get time off.
Until October 1, employees could claim time and a half for each hour of overtime worked on Saturdays and double time for work on Sundays.
This was according to a collective agreement applicable to all municipal workers in the Eastern Cape, signed at the SA Local Government Bargaining Council in February 2011.
Trollip said the municipality had anticipated industrial action after workers on standby refused to attend to an electricity outage in Summerstrand two weeks ago.
He said a sizeable amount of the budget for this financial year had already been spent on overtime.
While it was unclear whether residents should brace for another weekend of services not being restored when problems arise, municipal infrastructure and engineering political head Anette Lovemore said contingency plans were in place.
“We want to make use of every possible contractor willing to assist.”
Lovemore said sewers in the city had also been sabotaged with concrete and mattresses used to cause blockages but blocked sewers were easy to attend to as contractors were willing to work.
Referring to the loss of water supply in several wards, she said: “We know who had keys to which valves.
“We are able to track which vehicles were where.”
She said the action could lead to dismissal.
Adding to employees’ anger is that part of the new policy states employees on or above certain job gradings do not qualify for overtime pay.
SA Municipal Workers Union
‘ It became clear that there was a systematic outage of water
(Samwu) regional secretary Mqondisi Nodongwe said the union had consulted legal advisers on getting an interdict to stop the new policy.
He said the policy did not override the bargaining council agreement.
“There is no straight rate when it comes to overtime. Overtime is paid according to the Basic Conditions of Employment Act,” he said.
“They [workers] are correctly saying that there are basic conditions of employment and bargaining council collective agreements that guide us.
“Where does the municipality get the power to ignore the agreement and the act?”
Nodongwe said they had spoken to senior city managers as well as corporate services boss Vuyo Zitumane to express their concerns and to say the workers would not agree to the policy.
Imatu regional manager Churchill Motapo said the union had sent a letter of objection to the municipality, which had not yet responded.
“The collective agreement is binding [and] the municipality must wait until the agreement expires in 2021 or write to the bargaining council,” he said.
A municipal plumber, who asked not to be named, said the workers had been notified of the new policy at the beginning of the month.
“The municipality wants to impose this policy on us without even coming to talk to us, so we are not going to work overtime.
“When we work overtime, we sacrifice time with family and friends [and] this will also affect whatever lifestyle a person is used to,” he said.
EFF councillor Lukhanyo Mrara said that during the May 23 council meeting the party had asked for the policy to be workshopped, before abstaining on the vote.
“We questioned how the voice of the workers could be ignored,” Mrara said.
The ANC leader in the council, Bicks Ndoni, said the ANC had also raised concerns about the policy.
“We received some advice on the policies and even though there were some agreements, we had issues with the process of implementation,” Ndoni said.