SA's municipal workers 'preparing for war' after Sona

SA’s municipal workers are “preparing for war”.

That is what the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) claimed in a statement on Thursday evening in response to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s state of the nation address (Sona) which Samwu described as an “attack on the country’s municipal workers”.

Samwu bemoaned government’s continued use of the “exploitative” Extended Public Works Programme (EPWP) to deliver services.

“EPWP was introduced by government a few years ago as a poverty alleviation programme. This however has not fundamentally changed the lives of South Africans but rather has rendered them as cheap labour to municipalities,” Samwu said.

“These are people who are performing the same functions as those who are employed permanently and directly by municipalities, they are rendering services which are permanent functions of municipalities. Despite performing the same functions, they receive peanuts for doing the same job as their fellow municipal workers.”

Ramaphosa said in his state of the nation address: “Government will continue to provide employment through the Expanded Public Works Programme, especially in labour intensive areas like maintenance, clearing vegetation, plugging water leaks and constructing roads.

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“We will continue to develop programmes to ensure that economically excluded young people are work ready and absorbed into sectors where ‘jobs demand’ is growing.”

But Samwu claims the EPWP has led to municipalities leaving 38% of vacancies unfilled despite budgeting for them.

“These funded vacancies form part of the coalface of service delivery yet they are not filled because government has found a source of cheap and easily disposable labour,” Samwu said.