Court orders Tshwane to rehire over 200 unlawfully dismissed workers

Justice was served after the City of Tshwane was ordered to reappoint and reimbursed more than 200 former Capacity employees who were unlawfully dismissed in 2020.

The Capacity contract workers were dismissed in 2020 when their contracts expired and the city refused to reinstate the workers. Over the past year, the workers participated in various marches to hand over memorandums with demands which included being reinstated to their previous positions and reimbursed for the loss of income.

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The leader of the Capacity workers, Cedric Cele, said they could not wait to report for duty. Last Friday the workers, who usually joined Cele on the protests over the past year, met him at Church Square where he gave them the good news from the Bargaining Council – which not only ruled in favour of the workers but ordered the city to re-employ them.

“Yoh, yoh, yoh… they were so excited, it was like a revelation to them, you should have seen it,” he said.

“It’s a day they don’t won’t forget in their lives. They have been looking forward to this, they have been struggling and now justice has been served,” he added.

Cele said he was relieved when the council instructed the city to reinstate the workers and pay them 11 months’ backpay.

“That’s the outcome. It goes back to what I was saying all along, the city lied to us. We had a court case, the only thing we had, we were waiting for arbitration.”

Cele said the contracts were unlawfully terminated.

“The nature of the job they did was permanent, not of temporary nature,” he said.

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Most of the laid-off workers were still unemployed and struggling to recover financially. Fridah Maile said she was overjoyed with the outcome and to return to work.

“I am happy. I would like to thank everyone for their efforts and for us to go back to work again,” she said.

City of Tshwane spokesperson Selby Bokaba had not commented at the time of going to press.