Pietermaritzburg municipal workers left a trail of destruction during a protest march to the offices of Msunduzi Municipality on Thursday afternoon.
The South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) were protesting over the impending dismissal of nearly 1000 temporary staff members under the Extended Public Works Programme.
Msunduzi Deputy Mayor Thobani Zuma and Speaker Jabu Ngubo have been blamed for the dismissals, which take effect on December 3.
“It is clear that there is no leadership in this municipality, workers are used as voting fodder. They were promised to be appointed on full time basis ahead of the elections and now that this is over they are being dumped. We will not allow such,” said Samwu provincial chairman Rocky Madondo outside city hall on Thursday.
Addressing the crowd of over 500 workers, Madondo accused both city officials and political heads of abusive conduct towards workers.
“Where have you ever of people getting dismissed ahead of the festive season? The workers were already earning peanuts and now they are getting dismissed, it is not a correct thing to do,” said Madondo to thunderous applause from workers.
Tensions rose when none of the senior councillors and officials made themselves to accept a memorandum of grievances.
Many of the workers appeared to be aware that there had been an Executive Committee (Exco) meeting in the morning and that councillors and officials were inside city hall.
“It has never happened before that when there is a march or protest action that political office bearers and officials don’t avail themselves. This smacks of arrogance from the mayor (Themba Njilo) and his Exco colleagues,” said Madondo.
The union leadership promised to take the plight of the workers up with African National Congress President Jacob Zuma who is scheduled to address the ruling party’s Cadres’ Forum on Friday evening.
“Remember these workers are ANC members and there is nothing stopping them from reporting the matter to the president when he arrives here tomorrow. Maybe this will help in dealing with the arrogance from our leaders.”
After dispersing, the workers emptied rubbish bins on the busy city centre streets forcing traffic to slow down during the rush hour traffic.
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