JOHANNESBURG – The Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) is gravely concerned about the escalating acts of violent intimidation and damage to property of non-striking employees, and the resultant impact on the entity’s ability to maintain the city’s road infrastructure.
The South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) JRA employees embarked on a strike on Friday February 27, due to a dispute on three main matters, from an original 15, that Management and SAMWU had not been able to reach consensus on.
“Despite agreements for a peaceful strike, free of intimidation, we have over the past week, noted a significant increase in intimidation of JRA workers and contactors out on site attending to road maintenance as well as those fixing traffic signals, cautioned JRA Managing Director Skhumbuzo Macozoma,
“Acts such as petrol bombing homes, damaging property; and injuring and threatening employees at work is criminal behaviour, and cannot be tolerated in a constitutional democracy in which the right to safety of every individual is protected by the Constitution.”
He also said, “Stemming from yesterday’s incident, we are also in the process of investigating allegations of illegal tampering with traffic signal controllers, causing the traffic light to malfunction, which is increasing the number of faulty traffic signals across the city. This is done to alert non-striking technicians to the site for repairs, whereupon intimidation takes place.”
The JRA will be engaging with SAMWU to address these concerns as well the strike.
