Municipality ordered to reinstate workers

The municipality has been ordered to pay and reinstate a group of contract workers who were unfairly dismissed in January. The group of 12 workers allege that the municipality is not adhering to the arbitration award in their favour earlier this month. The worker’s contracts were from January 1 to March 31. The city was ordered to reimburse them for income lost which was to have been paid by March 20. Commissioner Amon Nyondo found that the municipality had unfairly dismissed the workers who were notified of this via SMS and that the municipality had no valid reasons for the termination.

Security Officers Civil Rights and Allied Workers Union member Andile Ndedwa, who represented the workers, said the former private security guards were turned away when they reported for work on March 8 and were told the municipality no longer recognised them as their employees. “The municipality doesn’t want to reinstate the workers and they don’t want to pay the money rightfully owed to them,” Ndedwa said. During the arbitration proceedings, one of the applicants, Nobuhle Duru testified that the municipality told them to resign from the security companies they worked for, including Fidelity Security and Metro Security. Duru said that they were dismissed because they did not meet the criteria which was that the security guards had to have been employed for a minimum of two years before being employed by the municipality. Duru testified that they were not told about the criteria before signing their contracts. Municipal spokesman Mthubanzi Mniki said the municipality did not comment through the media on an issue between the municipality, its employees or former employees.