Gauteng’s transport sector has been placed on alert about an intended labour strike tomorrow that could disrupt traffic at Gillooly’s Interchange if last-minute talks today with the office of Gauteng Community Safety MEC Faith Mazibuko break down (scroll down to see new development to this story).
This morning Thembelihle Sibeko, regional secretary for the Democratic Municipal and Allied Workers’ Union of South Africa (Demawusa), said Mazibuko had asked that the planned strike be delayed until Friday to give her office enough time to deliberate with the unions.
Should the talks not bear any fruit, tomorrow’s strike action would most likely go ahead, Sibeko said.
“At stake are various issues of concern,” he added.
These include the dissatisfaction among municipal workers about primary health care, and 60 VIP allowances that apparently have been exclusively granted to certain law enforcement officials, causing much disgruntlement among the majority of other Ekurhuleni Metro Police members.
Sibeko’s confirmation that tomorrow’s strike was tentatively still in play, served to dispel notions about whether or not the strike was even official.
“We will see what happens today. It’s a planned strike, it’s a protected strike, and we have to wait for the talks with the MEC to see what transpires.”
Doubts about whether the strike had been officially planned arose after both Gavin Kelly and Mike Fitzmaurice, respectively chief executives of the Road Freight Association (RFA) and Federation of East and Southern African Road Transport Associations (Fesarta), indicated that there had been no real clarity about what transporters could expect tomorrow.
Prior to the discussion between Freight News and Sibeko, Kelly said: “We have interacted with the unions and they say the strike is not official and is not happening. That’s all they do, deny, deny, deny.”
Fitzmaurice added: “It happens time and again. We engage with them and ask what’s going on and they say there’s no strike but then they’re going ahead anyway.”
Kelly said that Demawusa had also recently distanced themselves from the strike.
In the meantime both the RFA and Fesarta are keeping tabs on what’s happening to properly inform their members.
Information received by Fesarta has both Demawusa and the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) lobbying for the complete shutdown of the Gilloolys Interchange.
The message states: “Time is now. It is now or never. Bring along camp chairs and food as we will be there until our demands are met.”
A separate message, presumably also of union origin, said several regions of membership, from the south, north and east, would proceed along the N3, R21, R24, and N12 “to bring traffic to a complete standstill”.
Whatever happens at today’s talks, Kelly said Metro Police officers shouldn’t be allowed to strike anyway as they are an essential service.
Fitzmaurice said it was important that transporters kept a close watch on developments and familiarised themselves with the security situation as it unfolded.
Sibeko said they should have an answer by 5pm today about what was happening tomorrow.
Attempts to talk to Samwu were unsuccessful.
NEW DEVELOPMENT: When Freight News spoke to Sibeko at 18:30 on Wednesday evening, he confirmed that the meeting with authorities over tomorrow's proposed strike had indeed been fruitful.
"Both unions (Demawusa and Samwu) have taken the resolution not to proceed with the strike. We will though meet with the MEC (Faith Mazibuko of Community Safety in Gauteng) on Friday to see what transpires. Should we not be satisfied with how our demands are treated, we will consider announcing a new date for going on strike,"he said.
