Dismissed workers refuse to give up
IN 1994, more than 500 municipal workers employed by Midrand Council, took strike action against corruption when they discovered that illegal and underhand payments to the human resources department had secured jobs for relatives and friends.
In those days R100, about a third of the monthly salary of a municipal worker, was required as a bribe to get a name onto the payroll.
The Midrand workers, no doubt fired up by the new democratic dispensation, decided to sacrifice everything to stop this from happening. The employer’s response to the strike was typical of an unreformed apartheid-style council. All of the strikers were summarily dismissed.
That perhaps would normally have been the end of the matter, but within the ranks of these workers was a remarkable group of activists.
The strike was finally brought to an end when the Midrand Council used the tried and tested divide-and-rule tactic of selective re-employment. This was used to weed out the so-called troublemakers and punish them for daring to challenge apartheid-era corruption. Only 124 workers accepted re-employment, but a hard core of 280 remained in dispute – up until today.
Every Sunday at 8am, without exception, the former Midrand workers gather to discuss their campaign and to give each other support.
Their story consists of endless letters, petitions, representations, research, marches, interviews, pickets and more.
They have kept everything in folders including letters to Madiba, legal records of their case taken up by the Human Rights Commission, the public protector, the Public Service Commission, correspondence with the city council, their union, various MECs, community and national campaigning organisations, and a vast array of individuals.
The ex-Midrand workers have suffered every possible deprivation. Some have died after illness and from old age. Others have reached retirement age and still others have moved away from the area in search of greener pastures. All the more remarkable then that this group of 280 workers, and a sprinkling of dependants, are as united and determined today as ever.
For the past five years, they have waged a relentless campaign to be absorbed into the Joburg Council, which took a major slice of the former Midrand Council’s responsibilities. They have petitioned successive mayors.
More recently, Human Settlements MEC Jacob Mamabolo has taken up their case and has promised to discuss with mayor Parks Tau the possibility of absorbing the remaining workers into the city.
In a separate development, the workers have miraculously tracked down their unpaid pensions to a private pension agency based in Kempton Park and have added this to their campaign “to do” list.
Today, they will be marching to advance their cause from Pieter Roos Park on Empire Road, as proud members of the new Democratic Municipal and Allied Workers’ Union of South Africa.