GEORGE NEWS - The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) are taking to the streets this morning to hand over memorandums to the Department of Labour (DOL) and mayors of George and Garden Route District Municipalities.
Their first stop will be at DOL in Nelson Mandela Boulevard, from where they will move to the Garden Route District Municipality.
According to John Mcanjana, provincial secretary of Samwu, it is in line with the union’s activities for World Day for Decent Work, celebrated internationally today, 7 October.
“We are talking about proper jobs,” said Mcanjana. “All over the country there is a focus on decent work and Samwu members everywhere will join the protests.” The march was scheduled to start at 11:00 in Thembalethu. Yesterday, Samwu released several statements on their Facebook Page, one of which refers to George as a “special project”.
The conclusion of their statement reads as follows: “Samwu demand for the immediate suspension of the MM pending investigation into serious allegations of misconduct, fruitless and wasteful expenditure. We can only hope that MEC Anton Bredell does the right thing to save George Municipality from the jaws of an arrogant, vindictive and autocratic MM who has a clear intention to collapse the administration of George Municipality, by talking sense into the George Council.”
According to Mcanjana, some of the matters raised in the statement have also been included in the memorandums that will be handed over later today.
George Herald is awaiting comment from the municipality.
Read the full statement below:
06 October 2022
SAMWU declares George Municipality a special project:
The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (SAMWU) in the Western Cape Province is dismayed with the autocratic management style by the administration of George Municipality. SAMWU believes that the vindictive and wrongful purging of our members is driven by an agenda of malicious intent. These frivolous and vexatious disciplinary matters brought against our members is a serious attempt to collapse service delivery for the community at large. It is clear these disciplinary processes are politically motivated.
SAMWU is of the opinion that the vindictive, frivolous, and vexatious actions by the MM and her handlers have a very strong potential of destabilizing administration in terms of service delivery and disregarding the daily bread and butter issues of workers. Ever since the new administration of the municipality came in, there has been a lot of challenges. It looks like the focus and mandate of Council is to target and purge staff members who are part of their hit list. Workers are no longer certain about their future and job security. Employees are daily living in fear, and some are leaving the organization through resignations.
The Municipal Manager (Dr Michel Gratz) is challenging sanctions of disciplinary outcomes that are not in accordance with her wishes of dismissing people of colour at a very fast pace. She has embarked on an uncompromising attack on Directors of colour. To date she has successfully dealt with four (4) directors and is busy with the fifth one to revert to a pure Lilly White administration. George Municipality is currently being managed with disciplinary actions against poor workers with no vision to foster and strive for sound labour relations, but harsh disciplinary measures in the workplace. To SAMWU this is nothing less than a DA Apartheid regime agenda.
The municipal council is wasting ratepayer’s money on Smart Ryk Consultants who was unlawfully appointed to target staff members on their hit list. SAMWU will never be silenced by tendencies that seeks to collapse the administration of the municipality putting the workers in a worse position. This is the same Council that has exploited EPWP workers in various departments performing core functions with slavery wages, failed to pay workers a Covid-19 compensation and neglected to provide proper PPE to workers and deal with the absorption of temporal staff who must be appointed permanently.
SAMWU has reported irregularities pertaining to recruitment and selection processes for investigation and the employer is playing delaying tactics. The MM has proven to be involved in mal administrative practices that has a negative impact on improved service delivery to the greater community of George. Because of the passion that SAMWU have for exposing fraud and corruption, the George municipality has been declared a special project. There are other municipalities who are also special projects like Knysna, Kannaland, Mossel Bay, Laingsburg, West Coast District, Bitou (Plett), Beaufort West, Cederberg, etcetera, but our priority is George Municipality.
Lastly, SAMWU demand for the immediate suspension of the MM pending investigation into serious allegations of misconduct, fruitless and wasteful expenditure. We can only hope that MEC Anton Bredell does the right thing to save George Municipality from the jaws of an arrogant, vindictive and autocratic MM who has a clear intention to collapse the administration of George Municipality, by talking sense into the George Council.
Issued by SAMWU Western Cape
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