Tshwane’s move to replace dismissed workers angers union

The City of Tshwane is on a mission to appoint new staff after dismissing more than 120 workers for participating in an unprotected strike, but the SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) on Tuesday said it would be challenging those appointments.

City manager Johann Mettler issued a memorandum on Tuesday to the group head of regional operations and co-ordination in which he gave them the go-ahead to fill the vacant positions.

“Following this morning’s discussion, please take note that all regional heads are hereby requested to move forward with filling the positions where employees have been dismissed due to the illegal strike action. All documents need to be submitted to group human capital for urgent attention,” Mettler said.

City of Tshwane spokesperson Lindela Mashigo confirmed the filling of vacant positions, saying the process would be in line with the city’s recruitment processes, which are still at the inception phase.

“It must be emphasised that there is a dire need to kick-start the process of advertising the posts for service delivery not to be compromised,” he said.

Tshwane dismissed a total of 123 staff permanently for taking part in an ongoing unprotected wage strike, despite the municipality receiving a court order to stop the protests.

Samwu said that while the city is appointing new staff, union officials are at the SA Local Government Bargaining Council (SALGBC) to fight the dismissals of their members, stating they were unfair.

Tshwane regional secretary Precious Theledi said most of the dismissed workers were behind service delivery as they were in the electricity, water and roads departments.

“The city cannot dismiss workers without due process, no hearing, nothing, and then they come and want to appoint people in those positions. We will definitely fight for them. We are already at the bargaining council for unfair dismissals and waiting for the ruling on conciliations,” she said.

But a further 17 of their members were dismissed on Tuesday within two hours of receiving their letters of intention to dismiss, Theledi said.

She said the other dismissed workers had responded to their letters of intention to dismiss through Samwu, but they had lost their jobs without a disciplinary hearing.

“I am waiting for Samwu members to forward me their dismissal letters so we can take the issue to the bargaining council,” she said.

“I was informed that they were given notice of intent to terminate at about 9am and were told to respond by 11am ... then that was followed by dismissals. They received two letters at a go. They were not given a chance and received termination letters within those two hours. But an employee should be given a letter of intent to terminate and ample time for them to consult their union.”

The unprotected strike left the city in disarray when workers downed tools in July to force the city to implement the salary increases as per agreement with the SALGBC. This was after the city said it could not afford the R600m addition to the wage bill because of a shortage in revenue collection.

Tshwane has now approached the labour court after its bid to be exempt from the salary increase was declined by the bargaining council.

Mashigo said the court process will also deal with matters about the dismissal of workers as prescribed in the Labour Relations Act.

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