Statement – R2K Gauteng to march in solidarity with Simunye Workers Forum!

The Right2Know Gauteng in solidarity with Simunye Workers Forum (Lungile Mtsali), will be marching tomorrow morning to the Ekurhuleni municipality to hand over a memorandum of demands.

The Ekurhuleni municipality unfairly and un-procedurally dismissed 194 workers on 30 June 2015 who had been hired as casual workers with a stipend of R2000. During which the municipality made concessions to later provide training and hire the workers on a full time basis through different skills development projects within the municipality.

The municipality has refused to engage with the workers regarding full time employing them when their casual contract ended in August 2016. They were not issued with statements setting out the training they would receive. The applicants were, however, verbally told that they would receive training for plumbing, sewing, painting, electrical work and agriculture.

All this is despite prior communication with the workers in which they were told that they would be trained during the Community Project and then given permanent employment with the Municipality. The Municipality was meant to issue the workers with a statement setting out certain information, including training that they would receive during the Community Project. Since then, nothing has been forthcoming from the municipality in this regard.

The workers have tried numerous avenues to engage the municipality to resolve the matter, having even went as far as three arbitration processes through the South African Local Government bargaining council where they were awarded three arbitration awards against the municipality. The workers then launched a dispute against the municipality. This dispute concerns the alleged unfair dismissals of the applicants on 30 June 2015 when the applicants’ second fixed term employment contract with the 1st respondent (hereinafter referred to as the Municipality) expired.

The alleged dismissals are predicated on the assertion that, when the second fixed term employment contract with the Municipality expired on 30 June 2015, the applicants’ employment contracts with the Municipality were deemed to be of indefinite duration in terms of Section 198B (5) of the Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995. It was common cause that the applicants earned less than the threshold prescribed by the Minister of Labour in terms of Section 6 (3) of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act.

When the applicants returned to work after 30 June 2015, they were told that they were not allowed to work as their contracts had expired. The Municipality failed to adduce any evidence to prove that there was a fair reason for the applicants’ dismissals, or that the said dismissals were preceded by a fair procedure. It follows that the applicants’ dismissals were both substantively and procedurally unfair. Given that the workers have won three arbitrations against the municipality, we call on the municipality to speedily resolve the matter with the workers.

The issues and demands of the workers include:

• All workers who were working under the Municipality project’s haven’t received their UI, 19 (UIF) when workers goes to labour department they get rejected because they are appearing as they are still working under the Municipality.
• There are so many projects that are being posted on the Ekurhuleni Municipality website. We believe that those projects should be started by us, the workers.
• About 3 000 workers who are not working at this moment have been promised permanent jobs
• We need clarity on how the Municipality calculated the amount of R6 000 on the award.
• We demand our jobs back from the Ekurhuleni Municipality
• We don’t need compensation of three months since we’ve been working for the Municipality for three years.

March Details:

Date: 12 July 2018

Time: 10:00 am

Venue: Ekurhuleni Municipal Offices

47 Van Buuren Road, Germiston

For media comments contact:

Lawrence Madonsela – Workers committee: 079 732 8120

Thami Mbatha – Workers committee: 084 894 9753

General Moyo – R2K Gauteng Member: 071 529 0675