Tshwane EFF calls for the city to reinstate 600 workers 'inappropriately' terminated

The EFF's Tshwane branch has called on the city to reinstate and back pay 600 waste and capacity workers whose contracts were ended in October 2020.

The group marched to the city office on Monday despite the high court in Pretoria granting the city an urgent interdict against the march on Monday morning.

The court ruled that the EFF’s march was illegal and instructed marchers to immediately disperse.

The interdict further barred the protesters from performing any acts of destruction of city property and ordered them to pay the costs of the application.

Leading the march, EFF Gauteng spokesperson Philip Makwala said: “We are here to demand that the municipality comply with the local bargaining council award that all 600 workers must be reinstated and be given their monies for 16 months.”

After finding the gates to the city chambers locked, Makwala said they would not retreat.

 “We are not going to move until the municipality comes to its senses. There is no way the EFF will move and not deliver the grievances of the poor masses of our people because of the corrupt municipality of Tshwane. We will not retreat,” he said.

On the court interdict, he said: “The city [was] issued an interdict around 9 to 9:30am  and our march was supposed to commence at 10am. Only when we were there did we see on our phones [the] interdict.

“We have complied with all the provisions and processes that were supposed to be followed have been followed. It is a legal and peaceful march. Now they are sending their interdict,” Makwala said.

Tshwane mayor Randall William said the EFF was not a labour organisation nor a trade union. 

“The EFF is a political party and yet it feels it can manipulate labour processes in the city to drive its own political agenda. However, today the high court ruled in the city’s favour and agreed with our view that political parties are not allowed to drive their own agendas by masquerading as trade union representatives on behalf of ex-employees,” he said.

Williams said the city works through properly constituted forums and processes when engaging on labour matters to ensure that due processes and legislation are correctly followed, “processes which the EFF assumes it can ignore”.

Makwala has given the city seven days to meet their demands and said failure to do so would result in them mobilising all branches in Gauteng and heading to the municipality.

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