Durban ratepayer organisations say service delivery has not been fully restored, despite the eThekwini Municipality saying the municipal workers’ strike is over.
This comes as the SA Municipal Workers Union called on the City to halt the dismissal of workers found guilty of misconduct relating to the unprotected strike.
The strike crippled service delivery for almost two weeks and left one worker dead and others traumatised or in hospital with injuries.
Residents were left without water or electricity for extended periods because staff were either unavailable or feared attending to jobs because of threats directed at them. There was also no refuse collection.
While some ratepayer associations said they noticed improvements in refuse collection on Monday, they pointed out that refuse trucks were still being escorted by metro police, which showed safety was still a concern for workers on duty.
Janus Horn from the Manor Gardens Ratepayers Association said refuse collection was slowly returning to normal.
“Our area – Manor Gardens – had been affected by water having been turned off by a contractor. We managed to identify the contractor and it seems he opened the wrong valve. DSW have been working. We get told when they are en route, and security monitors them.
“I know that Umbilo/Sydney Road is badly affected. Some (people living there) have been without electricity since February, (and this is also the case in) an area in Stamford Hill/Greyville.
“On Saturday, we had a contractor work on the fault in Sydney Road for 22 hours, only for another portion of the cable to explode 24 hours later,” he said.
Ish Prahladh of the eThekwini Ratepayers Association said refuse collection was still happening on an ad hoc basis.
“Only the main roads have been cleaned.”
He said DSW trucks were being escorted by metro police.
“The strike is devastating everyone – both formal and informal residents have been without water and electricity for days on end. There is dirt all over (the city) and an infestation of rodents.
“This strike should have been taken care of immediately, because this is an illegal strike. But, no, this continues and the city is held to ransom. The residents of eThekwini are totally fed up with this situation,” he said.
Samwu eThekwini leader Xolani Dube said they were in negotiations with the municipality and looking to address what led to the strike.
“The negotiations with the municipality are ongoing. What we want is to call on the municipality to stop dismissing workers,” he said.
The municipality said last week that it had sacked 88 workers, and that others would appear before disciplinary hearings.
Dube said the union would appeal the dismissals and represent the workers who had been fired.
“As we have said, the negotiations are ongoing. A situation we do not want to see is one where on the one hand the city is engaged with the union in negotiations, but on the other it is dismissing workers,” he said.
Dube said the union still believed in the reason for engaging in the strike.
“There has been an agreement that we will meet with the city for a workshop to discuss the issue of benchmarking. That has been agreed upon. We believe that the issue does not need to be discussed at the national level. There are municipalities in Gauteng that have discussed it at their level and finalised it.”
Speaking on the chaos associated with the strike, Dube said that was something that could be discussed once the industrial action was over.
“The primary objective for the moment is to ensure that the city restores services to the public, and we as a union want to assist in that, as we believe in service delivery.”
The Mercury