Samwu woes taken to the capital city
Members of the SA Municipal Workers' Union (Samwu) have started gathering in Marabastad in Tshwane ahead of their march to the council's offices in the inner city.
Topping their demands is the provision of safety equipment for workers cleaning the streets of the country's capital. Samwu regional secretary Mpho Tladinyane said the union also wanted corruption to be urgently addressed and investigated.
"We have realised that senior officials of the city are currently colluding with private companies and defrauding the city. City employees work a particular area... but these private companies claim for the work (refuse collection) that has been done by city employees. City officials sign off the work and payments are made to the private companies‚" Tladinyane claimed.
He said when the city contracted trucks for refuse collection from private companies‚ it paid for trucks and workers.
"But the companies don't bring the workers (as stipulated in the contracts) but only bring the trucks and senior officials will then instruct our members to work with the trucks‚" Tladiyane said.
Tladinyane said the city also failed to provide gloves‚ safety boots and masks for the workers who are cleaning the streets.
"Our members are risking contracting disease in their work. We have raised this issue before and the city did not provide equipment‚" he said.
Samwu wants all waste management services in the city to be in-sourced. It also wants the city to provide security to workers who work in dump sites as there are "vagrants" who threaten workers wanting to collect recyclables. The march will end at Tshwane House‚ where a memorandum of demands will be handed to the city.