News24 reports that the Steve Tshwete Local Municipality in Mpumalanga has fired 400 employees who participated in a three-month protest that crippled service delivery in Middelburg and caused damage to infrastructure.
Municipal manager Bheki Khenisa confirmed that the 400 employees were served with dismissal notices on Friday. Another 100 employees from the civil engineering department will be served with similar notices on Monday. The protest was mainly started by infrastructure and technical services staff. Later, other departments, including library services, joined in. For three months, engineers, firefighters, electricians and parks services employees stayed away from work in Middelburg. They were fired for their absence from work since 21 September. According to Khenisa, the strike was illegal and workers failed to comply with a 48-hour ultimatum to return to work on 8 November. The workers accused senior municipal officials and leaders of having links to several companies that were contracted to work for the municipality. One of their demands was that outsourced services should be ended. The notices were addressed to employees who were members of the SA Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) as well as the Independent Municipal and Allied Trade Union.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Malibongwe Dayimani at News24
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