Court sends parties to CCMA
THE SA Municipal Workers’ Union’s (Samwu) long-running feud with the City of Johannesburg is far from over after the Labour Court referred the dispute about the municipality’s interference in union affairs to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA).
After consultations with all the parties’ legal teams, Judge David Gush yesterday said the CCMA should appoint a senior commissioner to preside over the dispute.
Judge Gush also postponed Samwu’s application to interdict the City of Joburg from forcing its unauthorised Joburg regional leaders to hold the election of shop stewards.
Samwu Johannesburg regional secretary Bafana Zungu told Independent Media the municipality was in contempt of court after it allowed the faction opposed to the union’s current leadership of general secretary Simon Mathe and president Pule Molalenyane to organise.
In December 2016, the faction led by the later former Samwu Limpopo provincial chairperson Timson Tshililo lost its Labour Court bid to be recognised as the union’s legitimate leaders.
The faction belonging to Tshililo, who was murdered in January, was unsuccessful in its appeals to the Labour Appeals Court and Constitutional Court.
After the dispute failed to be settled, even after the Molalenyane faction was declared the rightful leadership and the City of Joburg’s recognition of the other faction, Samwu now wants the Labour Court to stop the election of new shop stewards by the faction that lost in the apex court.
Samwu argues that the election of shop stewards is a national competence and that none of its regions can be instructed to go to elections.
Two weeks ago, SA Local Government Bargaining Council (SALGBC) commissioner Moe Ally dismissed the City of Joburg’s technical legal arguments heard before the case was actually heard.
Samwu approached the SALGBC in February stating that the municipality was interfering in the union’s work.
The City of Joburg said the SALGBC had no jurisdiction in the matter, Samwu’s application was defective and that it should have attached the signatures of its members at the municipality as it needed to identify employees party to the dispute.
Zungu was the only signatory to the referral forms to the SALGBC, but Ally found it would be absurd to require that all members sign the referral form.
“The application by the employer basically requires me to interfere in the internal affairs of a trade union. In me deciding whether Zungu has locus
standi (legal standing) would mean that I should interpret and apply the union’s constitution (which is not the dispute in front of me), thus interfering in the union’s internal affairs between its members and itself,” reads Ally’s arbitration award dated March 21.
Samwu and the City of Joburg will return to the Labour Court on April 25 should the matter still be unresolved at the CCMA.