Security guards march to demand insourcing
THE fight for the insourcing of workers in the City of Tshwane was intensified yesterday during a march aimed at pressuring the metro to hire security guards as part of a council resolution that was taken in 2018.
In terms of the resolution, the city must abolish the hiring of private security companies and employ 4 000 guards as part of a new directorate called the Asset Protection Unit under the auspices of the Tshwane metro police department.
Marchers gathered at Princess Park in the morning before dispatching to Tshwane House, where they sharply raised their disappointment with regard to the slow pace of insourcing them.
Traffic in the inner city of Pretoria was negatively affected as a result of the march, with motorists using WF Nkomo Street Street, Kgosi Mampuru Street, Madiba Street, and Lillian Ngoyi Street forced to drive slowly or to give the right of way to protesters.
Tshwane metro police department officers were on standby to control traffic and maintain law and order on the roads.
Marchers were joined by EFF members, who called on the municipality to honour the agreement of insourcing at least 4 000 security guards.
Joshua Mdau, a representative of the protesters, said: “We are working for private companies that are rendering services here in the City of Tshwane.
“We are here to hand over our memorandum regarding the issue of insourcing.”
He expressed displeasure that the implementation of insourcing security guards was taking forever to be realised, especially after a council resolution taken in 2018.
“The resolution states that the City should absorb security officers who are currently employed by private companies contracted to the municipality.
“One of our demands is that we need to be included in this mid-year budget. We are pushing that this DA-led multi-party coalition government will include us in their budget so that these private companies must go,” Mdau said.
He also said protesters were not fighting against private companies, but were fighting for their rights.
“We know that the only phase that was implemented as part of that council resolution is phase one.
“Even that phase one was not concluded. We also want phase two to be implemented,” he said.
Former Tshwane mayor Randall Williams last year ruled out hiring security guards, warning that taking such a decision could cripple the metro’s finances.
According to him, the City’s salary bill was deemed to be unsustainable after it had jumped to 50% over the years.
Three years ago, the Auditor-General also raised concerns about the City’s huge wage bill, which was at the time stood at R9.2 billion for a workforce of more than 20 000.