WATCH: Municipal employees bring Durban city centre to a standstill

eThekwini municipal employees brought the Durban city centre to a standstill on Tuesday in a wage protest.

Motorists who were not part of the protest were held up in dense traffic for several hours as employees used municipal trucks to block the traffic and scattered rubbish in the streets.

Durban – Municipal Workers Protest: Rubbish Trucks dumping waste on the CBD streets – HEAVY TRAFFIC pic.twitter.com/1wFzsUCmBI

— TrafficSA (@TrafficSA) April 30, 2019

Among the units that participated in the protest was Water and Sanitation, Parks, Durban Solid Waste (DSW) and Electricity.

South African Municipal Workers’ Union eThekwini chairperson Abraham Mchunu said employees would not return to work until salaries of all Grade 4 employees were raised to Grade 10 levels.

He said workers had discovered that the municipality had increased the salaries of employees who were part of the uMkhonto weSizwe Military during apartheid. Mchunu said municipal management had increased MK veterans’ salaries by more than 100%. He said an MK veteran employee doing a plumbing job who used to earn R6,000 would now earn R20,000 a month.

https://twitter.com/Djkyos/status/1123193796534132736

“Grade 10 is only for qualified employees while Grade 4 is for those that don’t have matric. We don’t understand, why would an MK veteran without a matric be promoted to a level of a qualified person?” said Mchunu.

“We are not against the promotion of MK veterans but we must be all be promoted. We all came here to work because we all need money, therefore no one should be treated specially just because he or she went into exile,” said a protester who asked not to be named.

Protesting municipal employees blocked roads in Durban with piles of rubbish. Photo: Musa Binda

At the beginning of last week municipal employees threatened to down tools if the matter was not addressed in a few days.

They did so, protesting last Thursday in the municipal offices in Pinetown, west of Durban, and Springfield, north of Durban. They blockaded the entrances of the offices with water tankers and prevented people from entering.

Durban Metro Police were called.

Provincial uMkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans Association spokesperson Themba Mavundla said: “The municipality has done nothing wrong because MK veterans deserve special treatment for liberating this country. We are planning to demand from government to also employ and promote children of MK soldiers who died in exile.”

By late afternoon the protesting employees were still waiting for the mayor to address them.

Attempts by GroundUp to reach the communications staff of the municipality by telephone and email were unsuccessful.

Republished from GroundUp

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.