SAMWU Ends Pikitup Protest
3 December 2015
The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (SAMWU) has ended the protest action embarked on at City of Johannesburg’s waste management Pikitup. The decision to end the protest action follows the intervention by Gauteng Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) led by MEC Jacob Mamabolo.
After a series of meetings and consultation with our members, we have decided to end the protest action at Pikitup and have signed an agreement with COGTA and the City of Johannesburg to this effect. All workers are expected to report for duty as of the 4th December 2015.
Parties have agreed to allow the Provincial Government to appoint a senior council who will work with all parties with the aim of facilitating the process of creating a conducive environment for further engagements with the aim of resolving grievances put forward by workers at Pikitup.
We have further agreed on a process that will manage the adverse effect of the principle of no work no pay for workers who were on strike. This will include various options including forgoing leave days to cover for the work time while we will engage with management on how workers who do not have leave days will be covered in this agreement.
We are pleased that this process will also benefit all employees within the City of Johannesburg as the City Manager has been tasked with implementing a process that will resolve salary disparities within the City. This process will be completed within the next two weeks and will prioritise workers at Pikitup.
We trust that this process which we have agreed to will assist us in resolving issues which led to us going to strike. We are further pleased that the process will also include a probe into the working relationship between the Managing Director of Pikitup and employees, this process is expected to have been concluded within 3 months.
We remain convinced that our demands leading to the protest action are genuine and as mandated by our members we will allow this process to unfold. We therefore urge all workers at Pikitup to return to work and allow this process to be fully exhausted. We further urge Pikitup management not to victimise workers who were part of the protest action. We thank community members who have been supportive and sympathetic towards our course.
Issued by, Simon Mathe, Deputy General Secretary SAMWU, 3 December 2015
