Independent Liberation Workers’ Union (ILAW) held strike at City of Johannesburg offices in Braamfontein on Thursday, to hand out the memorandum of demands to the City of Johannesburg Mayor Herman Mashaba.
The demand was for permanent positions absorption in the City departments.
ILAW president Thapelo Mafa said they are at the City offices to tell Mashaba that he should stop selling their jobs. He added that in the communities, Mashaba is the one who create jobs and on the ground.
“We are here with workers from Health, EPW and JMPD. On our memorandum, we demand permanent absorption of workers on the mentioned fields. They have different work experiences, some of them have five, and 10 while others have 15 years’ experience. Concerning JMPD, Mashaba recruited 1 500 officers in 2017. As the union, we received calls from the students in academic, in Meadowlands. They said they are being suspended verbally and told that we have filed the exams without receiving scripts showing so. When they question, directors and chief chase the students out of classes and inform them to do not come back for five days. “, he said.
Mafa added that according to EPW’s main objective, the aim was to reduce poverty and create job opportunities towards 2019. However, South Africa is still facing high unemployment rate.
“The Union was formed to be controlled by workers; it is going to be controlled by unemployed. We are going to do research, investigate and find out about why EPW workers are given R3500, while we do our calculations it has to go to R7000”, said Mafa.
One of the directors from the City of Johannesburg said it is not reasonable for them to answer the memorandum within 48 hours, as there are other serious issues they have to attend to.“We will give you answers on 8 August 2019. Therefore, you cannot come within 48 hours. We will sit with our labour department and I will make sure that the colleagues from JMPD, EPW are present so that we provide you with results upon the matter. Let us ensure that our people remain calm and we will give you answers in a boardroom. I will make sure that there is a delegation of senior people”, said one of City of Johannesburg director.
