Former municipal employee speaks on retrenchment issue

He was also in charge of the municipality’s human resources and personnel departments of the semi-autonomous local township municipality and he has described the process to retrench the 366 workers by the old Germiston City Council in 1993 as grossly flawed. As a part of the team of senior musicality employees, he told Kathorus MAIL he was present during the negotiations which led to the retrenchment package deal being agreed upon by the municipality and employees.

Hlahatsi described the deal as follows:

1. Retrenchments were tabled by the employer and reasons for this step were explained.

2. Conditions of retrenchments were tabled and agreed to by both parties.

3. The process and conditions of the retrenchment were never followed as agreed to.

Hlahatsi explained the many of the issues and conditions omitted could have yielded more favourable conditions that would have appeased both the employer and employees. But he says he was surprised when a decision was taken to proceed with the retrenchment even though the discussions had not been finalised and resolutions not reached.

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“It was a gross violation of the workers’ rights and the whole process went against the grain of the negotiated spirit of goodwill between the Germiston City Council and the two workers’ unions that represented the employees,” said Hlahatsi, who joined the old Germiston City Council as a young municipal clerk in in 1957 and retired in 1993, after almost three decades.

Now in his early 80s, Hlahatsi described the retrenchments as negotiated in bad faith and resulting in the current 26-year-old impasse that has left many of these former municipal employees hopelessly destitute in their twilight years.

“This only happened to these people because they were not educated and they could not speak for themselves,” said the old man, shedding tears as he spoke.

In trying to correct what he also claims was an injustice against the retrenched employees, Hlahatsi points out that not every black municipal employee was retrenched in 1993.

“Many who were more skilled were retained in their jobs and later integrated into the new democratic dispensation after the 1994 elections,” Hlahatsi explained.

He confirmed that the main reason behind the retrenchment of the 366 workers was due to the mass service delivery protests and rent boycotts that blanketed many black townships throughout the country at the time. In the Kathorus townships of Katlehong, Thokoza and Vosloorus the raging political violence between the African National Congress (ANC) and Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) was the major contributor to the almost total shutdown of many townships in the area, which also resulted in a freeze on municipal services.

With the coffers of the township municipalities running dry and salaries to pay to municipal workers and retain essential services, which were almost none existent, municipalities on the East Rand, including the Germiston City Council which was severely affected by the ongoing rent and service delivery boycotts, opted to retrench scores of their staff, especially those from the townships.

“But even then, the whole process was put in motion with strict negotiation guidelines in place. One of the conditions was that all retrenched employees would be re-employed and absorbed into a new system, should the political situation improve after the 1994 elections with a new black government in control,” Hlahatsi said.

Another condition to the retrenchment terms was that re-employment would first be given to those who have not been retrenched. Second preference would then be given to the retrenched employees, and thirdly it would be open to ordinary outside job seekers.

“Special emphasis and priority were given to the retrenched staff, but this process was never followed. This is why this is the situation these ageing former workers find themselves in today,” Hlahatsi explained.

Hlahatsi points out that as the most senior black municipal employee at the time, he was part of the old Germiston City Council’s team who negotiated and facilitated the retrenchment pay-out packages for the 366 municipal employees. He also told Kathorus MAIL he believes the pay-out deal was not negotiated in good faith by certain members of the council.

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Some political sources also believe the retrenched workers were actually given a raw deal, not only by the already crumbling apartheid government but by local political and civic structures who may have had a vested interested in the new political developments in the country.

Mzito Mpingana, a former Katlehong municipal worker now in his 70s, said he and his fellow former colleagues have been continually engaging with the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality, which took over the old East Buzwa, believes it is the political leadership of the region that has to make sure the issue is addressed and the retrenched workers or their families and descendants are adequately compensated.

Private investigator Thabo Buzwa says he welcomes the government’s as well as the metro’s involvement in the matter. He says the whole process needs to be revisited and properly investigated in order to understand why it has taken 26 years to even get the matter to this level.

He questions why these conditions were never followed nor implemented when the final decisions were taken to implement the retrenchment and re-employment process which were expected to have taken place under the new Nelson Mandela dispensation in 1994.

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