TimesLIVE reports that the City of Tshwane is set to appoint new staff after dismissing more than 120 workers for participating in an unprotected strike, but the SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) on Tuesday said it would be challenging those appointments.

City manager Johann Mettler issued a memorandum on Tuesday to the group head of regional operations and co-ordination in which he gave the go-ahead to fill the vacant positions. City spokesperson Lindela Mashigo confirmed the filling of vacant positions, saying the process would be in line with the city’s recruitment processes, but that they were still at the inception phase. Tshwane dismissed a total of 123 staff permanently for taking part in an ongoing unprotected wage strike despite the municipality securing a court order to stop the protests. Samwu pointed out that while the City appointing new staff, the union was fighting the dismissals of its members. The union’s regional secretary Precious Theledi said: “The city cannot dismiss workers without due process, no hearing, nothing, and then they come and want to appoint people in those positions. We will definitely fight for them. We are already at the bargaining council for unfair dismissals and waiting for the ruling on conciliations.” She added that a further 17 of their members were dismissed on Tuesday within two hours of receiving their letters of intention to dismiss. The unprotected strike left the city in disarray when workers downed tools in July to force the city to implement salary increases in terms of a SA Local Government Bargaining Council agreement. Tshwane has approached the Labour Court after its bid to be exempt from the salary increase was declined by the bargaining council.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Rorisang Kgosana at TimesLIVE

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