Unfairly dismissed former Tshwane contract workers want jobs back

General workers who claim the metro terminated their contract jobs unlawfully, marched in the CBD and delivered a memorandum of their demands to Tshwane House. Picture: Jacques Naude/African News Agency (ANA)

General workers who claim the metro terminated their contract jobs unlawfully, marched in the CBD and delivered a memorandum of their demands to Tshwane House. Picture: Jacques Naude/African News Agency (ANA)

Published May 27, 2021

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Pretoria - Irate former Tshwane contract workers, who claimed they were unfairly dismissed, have threatened to take the municipality to court in a bid to be reinstated into their positions.

The group took to the streets yesterday, claiming they had been hired for waste collection in 2019 and subsequently booted out without notification.

The protesters, who wielded sticks and posters with messages screaming for their “jobs back”, also claimed they were never assigned any work while employed by the City.

Despite that they never performed any work, they claimed the City continued to pay their monthly salaries for a period of a year.

According to them, the City suddenly stopped paying them without issuing a notification to indicate that their contracts had been terminated.

Yesterday, they marched from Kgosi Mampuru II Street to Tshwane House, where they chanted derogatory songs and called for the municipality to reinstate them.

One of their leaders, Cedric Cele, said: “These people were employed to perform work which will enhance service delivery. They demand their jobs back because they don’t have income.”

He indicated that failure by the municipality to reinstate them could leave them with one option, of approaching the courts.

“One of the last resorts which we will do is to go to court and demand more because you can’t have an employer who is able to terminate a contract but doesn’t want to account for that termination,” Cele said.

He said there were more than 500 workers who were affected by the termination.

Protesters handed over a memorandum of demands to the MMC for Corporate and Shared Services Sylvester Phokoje, who promised to deliver it to council Speaker Katlego Mathebe to look into the matter and give feedback soon.

Pretoria News

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City of Tshwane