BASIC SERVICE delivery was severely disrupted and public bus transport was brought to a standstill in South Africa yesterday when up to 150,000 municipality workers began a nationwide strike for better pay.
In cities across the country striking workers emptied uncollected refuse bins on to streets as they marched to municipality buildings to hand in their demand for a 15 per cent annual pay rise. The strikes are expected to continue today.
SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) and the Independent Municipal and Allied Trade Union (Imatu) members also want a minimum wage of 5,000 rand (€450) per month, housing loan assistance and all vacant posts at municipalities filled by next January.
The unions have already rejected 11.5 and 13 per cent pay offers made by the SA Local Government Association. They say they are struggling to cope with an inflation rate that peaked at 13.7 per cent last year.
“We would appear to have huge support,” said Patrick Craven, a spokesperson for the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu), an umbrella body which counts Samwu and Imatu among its 200-strong membership of unions. “We hope that the employers will have noticed it and come back to the negotiating table as soon as possible.”
While in most cases protests by striking workers passed off peacefully, a water canon was used to disperse marchers in Pretoria and three people were injured by rubber bullets fired by police in Polokwane, Limpopo province, where a protest turned violent.
Supt Moatshe Ngoepe said about 3,000 workers had been marching to the municipal offices when the situation became violent and police were forced to act.
“They damaged the gate of the municipal entrance and they took all the dustbins and threw it [the rubbish] all around the streets. We intervened . . . [and] three people were slightly injured.”
South Africa has already dealt this month with a major strike by construction workers, which threatened stadiums being built for next year’s football World Cup. The persistent industrial disputes are seen as the first major challenge for new president Jacob Zuma.
As part of his election campaign Mr Zuma promised to ease the plight of South Africa’s poor, which has worsened in recent months as the country has slipped into recession for the first time in 17 years.
Last week residents from informal settlements around the country blocked streets, rioted and looted in protest over the slow provision of basic service delivery. Fears are also mounting that continuing strike action by municipality workers could inflame this simmering discontent.