Durban – City employees that embark on unprotected strikes could soon find themselves facing severe sanctions that go beyond having their wages being docked.
Speaking to the media on Thursday, eThekwini mayor Mxolisi Kaunda said the city employees that embark on unprotected strikes, especially those who use municipal vehicles to block roads, should face severe consequences.
He said while the employees had a right to protest, this right was not absolute and it cannot infringe on the rights of others.
In the past few weeks, the city has had to deal with a number of wildcat strikes.
In August it implemented a new policy that cut overtime pay across departments. The move led to several wildcat strikes that threatened to derail service delivery in the city, with different units striking or planning strikes.
Durban Solid Waste (DSW) staff members were the first to down tools after their overtime pay was cut by limiting the hours they could work. They were followed by staff in the electricity department.
Kaunda said the municipal manager, Musa Mbhele was taking striking employees to task and that the principle of “no work, no pay should apply”.
However, Kaunda said this was not enough, especially in cases where people use municipal vehicles to block traffic, thereby inconveniencing several people.
Kaunda said such actions had consequences for people who had nothing to do with the strikes, including being unable to report to work or arriving late. He said in some instances those workers were dismissed.
“Those people are now swelling the ranks of the unemployed because they were fired from their jobs because they had arrived late,” he said.
THE MERCURY