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