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Dear Comrades

Please see this three pronged appeal and respond. It would help us a lot. All three issues are to do with privatisation.

  1. Johannesburg's 25 thousand municipal workers have embarked on an indefinite strike from today. It is against privatisation and iGoli 2002 in general, but specifically against two labour-related issues. SAMWU and IMATU, the other union joining the strike, have demanded that workers in the newly privatised and corporatised entities be taken back to council if these entities go bankrupt. Once workers have been taken back their jobs should be guaranteed to pensionable age. The council has said they will only take back workers from bankrupted entities until the end of 2001 and offers no job guarantee. In addition, the council has committed a number of constitutional infringements on the union and members this week. Firstly, Olga Manganye, a worker who was interviewed by public radio in her personal capacity on November 15th 2000 about the difficulties of working under the iGoli 2002, has been threatened with disciplinary action for saying things "the council did not like." Also, yesterday the Chief Executive Officer of the Eastern Metropolitan Local Council of Johannesburg, Chris Ngcobo, issued an instruction that tomorrow's march from the Library Gardens to the Civic Centre would not be allowed to take place. Workers have been confined in a small area all day for a rally without being allowed to march to the employer's offices. The right to march is one that was bitterly fought for under apartheid and now it is being refused to SAMWU members. Suez Lyonnaise has just been awarded the tender for the city's water after putting in a bid so low that they will never make any profit at all. It is clear that they just did this to win the tender, not being a charity organisation, and are now going to hike up water tariffs, cut back on health and safety standards, and cut the workforce. All over Johannesburg, evictions, electricity cut-offs and water cut-offs are running rampant. Some communities have taken days off work to barricade their streets against the predatory sheriffs who are coming to attach the little furniture that they own to recoup some service arrears money. Meanwhile, the council has spent the equivalent of the arrears of 93 thousand households on international consultants - R65 million or 6.5 GB pounds. The Johannesburg Anti-Privatisation Forum is supporting the SAMWU-IMATU strike and these community demands.
  2. Cape Town's 18 thousand municipal workers are on strike tomorrow also against privatisation and labour related issues. The Cape Town Unicity Commission, a group of bosses and consultants currently restructuring the city, have closed down a number of municipal depots. Workers at those depots are being placed into a "corporate pool." After the elections next week on December 5th, these workers will be deployed anywhere in the very large Cape Metropolitan Area to do any work that the unicity commission deems fit and will not be compensated for extra travel. This could entail up to 2 hours travelling time twice per day for a worker, besides the fact that there are many places that cannot be reached by public transport. The Unicity Commission is also planning to privatise all assets. They are continuing with disconnections of services, evictions, and serving court orders on those who have service arrears. The Local Government Transformation Forum, a community network of civic and other organisations is supporting the SAMWU march to highlight civic demands.
  3. There is a global summit starting in Cape Town on Monday on "Private Finance Initiative." There will be a picket outside by the Local Government Transformation Forum. Please see the union's press statement below. Many thanks to UNISON Scotland for all their PFI material which we have used.

For all the above, we need e-mails of solidarity. Please send to all these addresses: samwu@sn.apc.org; gendero@samwu.org.za; interno@samwu.org.za

That way we can pick them up in Joburg and Cape Town.

We need letters of protest to Council bosses. These are the names in Joburg:

EXCO Chair Kenny Fihla afihla@gjtmc.org.za
Co-ordinator in office of the Mayor pmoloka@gjtmc.org.za
Acting CEO Mavela Dlamini mdlamini@mj.org.za
Graeme Reid, Inner City Manager greid@mj.org.za
Ketso Gordhan, City Manager kgordhan@mj.org.za
Makgane Thobejane, Labour Relations mthobeja@mj.org.za (former General Secretary of Public Sector Union NEHAWU)
Roland Hunter, Chief Financial Officer rhunter@mj.org.za
Pascal Moloi, Transformation Project Manager pmoloi@gjtmc.org.za
Phindile Nzimande, Legal Adviser pnzimand@mj.org.za
Anthony Still, Transition Manager of Water Utility astill@mj.org.za

Rest of the councillors:

pandrade@gjtmc.org.za; busnet@mweb.co.za; mmokoena@gjtmc.org.za; imogase@gjtmc.org.za; jbriggs@gjtmc.org.za; pbuthele@mj.org.za; jbriggs@hixnet.co.za; fkendall@global.co.za; iisaacs@gjtmc.org.za; cfortuin@gjtmc.org.za; mm44@pixie.co.za; pdewet@gjtmc.org.za; rdubazan@gjtmc.org.za; donaldforbes@yahoo.com; mmoriarty@gjtmc.org.za; smgidlana@gjtmc.org.za; ymakda@gjtmc.org.za; smabuza@gjtmc.org.za; emabe@gjtmc.org.za; panda@mweb.co.za; mlombard@gjtmc.org.za ; alewis@gjtmc.org.za

We also need letters to the South African Press. Here are their e-mail addresses:

alive@safm.co.za; xundux@tml.co.za; phumzile@kaya-fm.co.za; raborokj@sowetan.co.za; editor@kaya-fm.co.za; belnews@wn.apc.org; israel@sapa.org.za; sapa@iafrica.com; mahap@woza.co.za; lungile@yfm.co.za
haffajeef@bdfm.co.za ; alackay@beeld.com; tcelean@tml.co.za; bramdawn@tml.co.za

Letters to the Editor should be sent to:

Please send letters to the Editor on the situation to these newspapers:

The Sowetan mangaa@sowetan.co.za
Mail and Guardian editor@mg.co.za
The Star newspaper sma@star.co.za
Business Day busday@bdfm.co.za;
Sunday Times suntimes@tml.co.za

Please send copies to the SAMWU addresses so that we can upload to our website.

Yours in the struggle against privatisation, Anna Weekes
SAMWU Media Officer


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