More workers down tools as talks continue TECHNICIANS, plumbers and other service workers downed tools yesterday as they joined their electricity department colleagues, demanding that the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality immediately pay a scarce skills allowance.
The strike has brought the city’s infrastructure and electricity departments to a standstill, with the municipality battling to attend to power-related complaints.
This also means the city was not implementing Eskom loadshedding at the weekend as there was no one to properly man the switches.
Eskom said yesterday that if the municipality did not implement load-shedding, it was able to switch off power itself or load-shed a different part of the city from that on the schedule, to save Megawatts needed.
The scarce skills allowance was done away with last month.
Yesterday, technicians joined the strike which started on Friday, with public health workers expected to also down tools today, SA Municipal Workers’ Union regional secretary Mqondisi Nodongwe said.
Samwu leaders said they had told their members the employer had promised to pay them by Friday but that the message had fallen on deaf ears.
“We had a meeting with the members and the employer today and we agreed that the scarce skills allowance would be paid on Friday, but workers are not going back until the money is in,” Nodongwe said yesterday.
He was at pains to clarify that the members were not on strike but were negotiating with the employer. “It is not a strike, we are in negotiations with the employer and [if] there is a written confirmation that says our members will get the allowance on Friday they will go back to work,” he said.
Mfunda had cautioned that the department would not be able to attend to complaints immediately but would do its best to address all, he said. -Avuyile Mngxitama-Diko