The South African Municipal Workers' Union (SAMWU) has today met with workers at the Rand West City Local Municipality, this after the municipality had over the weekend threatened to dismiss over 700 employees.We can confirm that not a single employee will lose their jobs in the
municipality. The threat by the municipality was nothing but a well calculated move to cause panic and divide workers and further to discourage them from continuing to demand that they be paid fairly and correctly.
We also confirm that workers have never been on strike in the municipality but rather a protest action in which they were demanding that municipal management to address them on why workers are not being paid in line with the salary scale of the municipality, this after senior management decided to upgrade their own salaries but failing to ensure that workers who are responsible for service delivery are remunerated on the correct scale.We are well aware of processes involved in declaring a strike, if that is the route we wanted to take, we would have done so, hence we never opposed the employer's court application which sought to interdict "striking workers"
We have also this afternoon met with the Political Management Team (PMT) which consists of the Mayor, Speaker and the Chief Whip. In the meeting all parties expressed concern over the unnecessary panic that the threat of dismissal had caused among workers and residents of the municipality.Parties have appreciated the gravity and legitimacy of grievances which have been put forward by workers and as such, all should strive to ensure that the impasse is resolved as a matter of urgency.A Special Local Labour Forum will therefore be convened this week to deal with the worker's grievances. We will ensure that this process results in our members being paid correctly and fairly.