Red wave in CBD

GEORGE NEWS - A strike by over 200 members of the South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) yesterday affected service delivery in certain departments, such as refuse removal, throughout George and surrounds.

A red wave of Samwu members made their way to the George Municipality's main building to hand over a memorandum of grievances. Outstanding Covid-19 compensation funds, the Task job evaluation system used by the municipality and unilateral restructuring are some of the issues they want to address, said Samwu's provincial secretary, John Mcanjana.

Municipal spokesperson Chantel Edwards-Klose confirmed that so-called "danger pay" as well as other matters dating back to 2018, are part of Samwu's list of grievances.

By 13:30 yesterday afternoon the municipality was not yet in possession of the memorandum and was unable to comment further on the matter.

A group of over 200 Samwu members made their way to the George Municipality’s main building.

Mcanjana said their grievance with the Task job evaluation is that it is manipulation to benefit senior management while ordinary workers are suffering. "Furthermore, unilateral restructuring is looking at face value instead of addressing serious service delivery challenges, including the exploitation of EPWP and contract workers."

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He said these issues have been ongoing since 2018, when Samwu submitted a document of "unresolved grievances".

"We have tried everything in our power to negotiate with the local Labour Forum to address these issues, but unfortunately today none of those issues have been addressed, including the issue of compensation that we have started to negotiate with the employer since April 2020 when the hard lockdown started," said Mcanjana.

"We are in a deadlock in terms of our negotiations and we are exercising our rights to go on a protected strike. This is a legal strike."

A group of over 200 Samwu members made their way to the George Municipality's main building yesterday morning. Members embarked on a strike after a deadlock was reached in negotiations.