Rubbish piling up in Nelson Mandela Bay. Municipal workers have been on strike all week.
Rubbish has started to accumulate in areas of Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality as workers strike. Rubbish has not been collected this week, and on Tuesday protesting workers dumped plastic bags filled with rubbish at the entrance to the office of Mayor Athol Trollip in the Port Elizabeth CBD.
This is the second strike in two months. Workers first downed tools in August when they dumped rubbish in town and blocked roads with waste collecting trucks.
The striking workers are demanding unpaid wages, production bonuses and a risk allowance. They want contract workers to be hired permanently. They claim they are made to work under unhygienic conditions. They are also demanding the immediate resignation of Andile Tolom, the executive director of public health waste management.
The South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) Regional Secretary Mqondisi Nodongwe said at the top of the list of their demands was backpay since the year 2000, when workers were not paid for working through lunch and tea breaks, and secondly an investigation into Andile Tolom. Workers accuse him of awarding refuse collection contracts to his friends. GroundUp has been unable to get comment from Tolom.
Nodongwe said the average salary for workers in the refuse collection unit was R7,500 a month. He said they were shocked to hear the municipality was now planning to cut the workers’ monthly bonuses.
“The monthly production bonuses vary, but it’s an average of R1,500 per worker. This angered most workers. We also have fifteen contract workers who we are pushing to be employed full time … Some have been with the municipality for many years.”
A longtime employee in the refuse collection unit said they were working under stressful and unhealthy conditions.The employee, who asked not to be identified, said, “We wake up early in the morning and at times risk our lives because some areas, especially [in the] townships, have taverns that operate throughout the night. We frequently meet drunk and aggressive patrons who want to rob us. This is the reason we are demanding a risk allowance.”
On Wednesday, the union had discussions with the deputy mayor, Mongameli Bobani. “We tabled our grievances and now we are waiting for the input of the mayoral committee that deals with such issues. We hope there will be progress, but in the meantime the strike continues until we reach an agreement with the municipality,” said Nodongwe.
Municipality spokesperson Mthubanzi Mniki stated in a press release that: ‘The protest action has led to the disruption of refuse collection. A number of engagements and negotiations have been undertaken by the municipality to find an amicable solution to this matter, but so far no agreement has been reached … a “no work, no pay” principle will apply to those who will be part of the strike.’
Mniki warned that ‘the municipality will also monitor the strike for any incidents of lawlessness and destruction of property by employees. Disciplinary action will be taken against those found to be part of such acts, and the law will take its course’.
Mniki appealed to residents to take their rubbish to their nearest collection sites.
By Joseph Chirume
South Africa Today – South Africa News
