Integrating Ugu workers

The Independent Municipal and Allied Trade Union (IMATU) in Ugu said the ugly thing about most departments within Ugu District Municipality is the poor working relationship between managers and the workers.

This was a sentiment shared by Thabisile Mnembe of IMATU on Thursday, last week when the district municipality held a Prayer and Wellness Day for its employees at the Port Shepstone Civic Centre.

Mnembe said managers should address employees about things they are not happy with in private and not in front of other workers.

She added that managers also do not have to prove to workers that they are in charge by making workers sign warnings and so forth.

“We are grateful that the municipality has organised this day for us and we believe that if a manager of a certain department works hand in glove with the department’s staff, there will be few cases that HR would have to deal with,” said Mnembe.

Also, Phila Madwe of the South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) said they have unfortunately noticed that there are groups within the municipality.

“The one group is of the recently reinstated workers and the other is a group of the workers who were not dismissed. We have spoken about this a number of times, we told the recently reinstated workers that when they go back to work, they are going to work and not be part of groups. And when we were integrating the two groups of workers, we told them that they are all employees of Ugu District Municipality. We are all here in the municipality because of service delivery, it does not matter who does not like who, who does not support who, we are here to deliver services to Ugu residents,” said Madwe.

Meanwhile, Ugu acting mayor, Mandla Chiya said when the acting municipal manager,Vela Mazibuko and his team came up with the idea of a Prayer and Wellness Day, they could not say no.
Chiya said the death of Ugu’s former municipal manager, Elliot Ntombela, a few days before the death of former Ugu mayor, Phumlile Mthiyane, left all Ugu workers traumatised.

The acting mayor said he thinks Ugu is the first municipality that experienced the death of the head of administration and the death of the head of service delivery in a space of a few days.

“We had to invite leaders of religious organisations because we felt that everyone in the municipality has not fully recovered from the loss. There was also the issue of integrating the recently reinstated workers and the workers who were not dismissed, we needed to create that conducive environment among all of us so that all workers can be able to deal with the issue of service delivery. Our core mandate is to deliver water and dignified sanitation and so we hope that the prayer will somehow heal workers and also inspire them to be committed to doing their work,” said Chiya.

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