The City of Tshwane has secured a contempt of court order against South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) on the unlawful strike that has been going on for two weeks.
The order comes after some striking workers ignored a court interdict against the unlawful strike.
Mayor Randall Williams says, “Samwu, its members and all illegal protesters are interdicted and restrained from any unlawful and violent action that is in contempt of the February interdict. 2. Samwu and its members must immediately disperse and are interdicted from any acts of destruction of City of Tshwane property and any private or public property, or from performing acts of intimidation against any City of Tshwane employees.”
Last week, the Amatola Water Board and the Samwu in the Eastern Cape have reached an agreement, bringing an end to a protracted strike over a number of issues.
Some of the issues that the workers wanted to be addressed were an appointment of an interim board, a new Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, as well as a 13th cheque for the workers.
The strike affected a number of municipalities in the province.
Samwu Provincial Secretary, Luzuko Yalezo says their members will return to work.
“We have met since last week, back to back meetings, but we were not yielding any result until this morning where we at least reached an agreement that the issues of workers will be dealt with.
Now, we are waiting very carefully for the minister to appoint the interim one that we think will assist going forward in terms of Amatola issues. Once we have signed the agreement, we will resume work so that the people of the Eastern Cape can drink water again,” says Yalezo.
