Joburg power chaos not acceptable
JOHANNESBURG residents want their electricity restored now, not in three or four days' time - as City Power has suggested.
These are taxpaying citizens who should not have woken up to find no electricity on the morning of 5 September in the first place.
They did and will continue to suffer for as long as wildcat strikes are considered to be normal in South African terms – and that’s in a democratic country where access to basic services is a right.
Everyone involved in the public service, from President Jacob Zuma, Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane and Johannesburg Mayor Parks Tau, should hang their heads in shame.
But they have no shame; neither would they see anything wrong with the strike by City Power employees that caused havoc on the roads and plunged parts of Johannesburg into darkness, or several other strikes that are currently on-going for that matter.
To City Power and striking employees angry about a new shift system: events of Thursday morning are perfectly ‘normal’.
After all, government’s only take on the strike season so far been a statement of a few lines urging workers to protest peacefully.
City Power has since warned striking employees to get back to work urgently or face appropriate action.
The workers have hit back by daring the municipal electricity service provider to fire all of them.
Employers don’t care about people that make them the money, and government officials have no love for those whose vote put them in power.
Throw an impatient workforce into the mix and you get a perfect strike cocktail.
