Protesting South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) members overturned rubbish bins and left a trail of waste through Pietermaritzburg’s city centre yesterday as they marched to City Hall to hand over a list of workplace grievances to Msunduzi Municipality. Photo: MOEKETSI MAMANE
The Samwu strike in Msunduzi will enter its second day on Wednesday, with the union maintaining pressure on the municipality to address outstanding workplace grievances.
The South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) had previously suspended its protected strike action in June, saying it was demonstrating restraint and goodwill to allow uninterrupted engagement between the employer and employee representatives.
However, the union returned to the streets on Tuesday, with members marching from Dales’ Park to the City Hall to deliver a memorandum outlining their demands.
The march left parts of the city centre strewn with rubbish after protesters overturned bins along the route and at the City Hall precinct.
While some workers chanted slogans and sang, others continued overturning bins as they waited for municipal officials.
Samwu local chairperson Brandon George said the union had not intended to disrupt municipal services but had been left with no alternative.
“Our citizens are suffering and not receiving adequate service delivery. We too, as staff members of Msunduzi, are having our own internal issues and therefore we would like to even welcome those that are in solidarity with us, even community members, to us so that we can achieve what we can to restore services to our communities,” George told The Witness on the sidelines of the march.
He said the union had repeatedly attempted to resolve its concerns with municipal management.
We don’t have a proper employment structure in place in this municipality. We have no proper job descriptions, and our members are not compensated when they work overtime. We have been trying for so long to have these issues resolved, but the management does not come to the party.
Central to the memorandum of demands the union intended to hand over to city management on Tuesday was a salary-grading dispute involving general assistants, whom Samwu wants moved from grade T3 to T7.
“The management must stop playing hide and seek, and the municipality must stop negotiating in bad faith.
“There must be a clear resolution, decision and unequivocal position from council for the complete implementation of the job evaluation process via an independent third party (Deloitte), ensuring a unified job description and clear progression path to Task Level 7 for general assistants.
“The 2023 structure and job description for the entire municipality must be completed,” reads the memorandum.
Samwu is also demanding clarity on the absorption of interns, contract workers and EPWP participants into vacant funded posts.
The union wants the council to adopt a resolution setting out clear implementation criteria and timeframes.
Another demand is the deactivation and suspension of biometric systems and cameras installed in municipal vehicles until the matter has been discussed at the local labour forum.
The union was unable to hand over its memorandum because city manager Felani Mndebele was not available to receive it.
Union local secretary Xolani Ntshangase confirmed that the strike would continue on Wednesday.
Msunduzi Municipality said essential services were continuing despite the strike, although residents should expect some delays.
“Teams are currently attending to service delivery matters, including waste collection and reported service faults,” the municipality said.
It acknowledged that litter and waste had accumulated in parts of the CBD and said arrangements were being made to clean the affected areas.
The municipality said it was also engaging organised labour in an effort to resolve the dispute.
“While the municipality respects employees’ right to raise workplace grievances through appropriate processes, service delivery to residents remains a priority,” the municpality said.
Cosatu has backed NUM’s legal challenge against Eskom’s restructuring, opposing privatisation and demanding protections for jobs and bargaining rights.
Trade union federation Cosatu has come out in support of the National Union of Mineworkers’ legal challenge against the Eskom restructuring task team’s phase one report.
The federation is opposing any move it believes is an attempt to privatise the electricity grid and is demanding guarantees that utility workers will not lose their jobs or bargaining rights.
Cosatu’s Zanele Sabela wants the government to first deal with Eskom’s financial problems, including more than R120 billion owed by municipalities.
“Phase two of the Eskom restructuring task team process must fully respect collective bargaining and the principles of a just transition. A just transition must, in turn, protect jobs, strengthen Eskom, promote localisation and industrial development, ensure reliable and affordable electricity, and safeguard public ownership,” Sabelo said.
Earlier in August, President Cyril Ramaphosa said the unbundling of Eskom is not about privatising the power utility, but about creating greater competition in the electricity sector.
The government’s unbundling plan involves splitting the state-owned power utility into three separate entities, each responsible for generation, transmission and distribution.
“We’re not privatising anything, particularly when it comes to the electricity sector. What we are doing is to restructure Eskom so that it becomes much more competitive, and we bring in other players. So, Eskom remains a state-owned enterprise,” Ramaphosa told the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa.
The president said the government was moving towards a competitive electricity market in which multiple generators would compete to supply electricity.
“Meaning that we have now gone past just the efficient generation. We now must move to an era where there’s competition, which will help to bring down prices,” he added.
He also said this would help in dealing with Eskom’s huge debt.
File image: A nurse with medical equipment. Image Credits: Reuters
The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) in the Free State has pledged its solidarity to three healthcare worker professionals who were allegedly attacked while on duty three months ago.
A patient, Molahlehi Takadimane allegedly attacked two nurses and a cleaner during a night shift in May at the Thabong District hospital in Odendaalsrus.
The accused, who is alleged to be a mentally challenged patient, appeared briefly in the Odendaalsrus Magistrate’s Court, before the matter was postponed to 26 August for further investigation.
Nehawu National Treasurer Kgomotso Makhupola has urged the Department of Health to take the incident seriously and provide the three affected employees with psycho-social support.
“As a union we are doing all we can to ensure that we assist the members with everything. We are saying the department must take accountability. This member has used her own finances to make sure she can go from one place to the another to get medical care. Yet the incident happened during working hours. So, the department must take all costs that the member has incurred during the incident.”
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Teachers at Eastbank High School in Alexandra have produced good results despite years of overcrowding and pupil unrest. Stock photo: (123RF/jittawit)
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Eastbank High School in Alexandra’s 81.5% matric pass rate in 2025 came at a cost to its staff, the South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) says.
The school, which has faced years of overcrowding and unrest among pupils, matriculated its class with a pass rate that outperformed several schools in Alexandra.
According to Sadtu, the result masks the toll the conditions at the school are taking on teachers.
“They are giving their best, but at the cost of their mental wellbeing and physical exhaustion because the school is overcrowded,” said Sadtu national spokesperson Nomusa Cembi.
The teachers’ union said it had engaged with a site steward at the school who confirmed discipline remained a serious problem, particularly among grade 9 pupils. Some pupils causing disruptions, the representative said, had been dismissed from former “model C” schools or could no longer afford fees at other schools and had since been enrolled at Eastbank High.
Generally teachers have to do weekend classes, morning classes and afternoon classes right through the year, sacrificing their time. We welcome these achievements, but they come at a cost to their mental wellbeing. This can lead to burnout and exhaustion
— Nomusa Cembi, Sadtu national spokesperson
“We welcome the results but we do not know how long the work the teachers are doing can last because of the conditions in the school,” said Cembi.
Asked whether teachers were receiving support to help them cope, Sadtu said help was not readily available on site. Teachers who needed assistance had to report the matter to the district office, meaning support only came after a problem had been reported.
“Nothing is being done to pre-empt it. Support is reactive,” said Cembi.
Sadtu also highlighted the extra hours teachers typically put in at schools to ensure good pass rates across the board, not only in Alexandra.
“Generally teachers have to do weekend classes, morning classes and afternoon classes right through the year, sacrificing their time,” said Cembi. “We welcome these achievements, but they come at a cost to their mental wellbeing. This can lead to burnout and exhaustion.”
The union’s comments come after desks and chairs were set alight at Eastbank High on Tuesday, prompting a strong rebuke from Gauteng education MEC Lebogang Maile. A case of malicious property damage was opened with police, and the school is expected to institute disciplinary proceedings against the pupils involved.
Eastbank High’s struggles reflect a broader problem playing out across Gauteng
Maile said the incident could not be separated from the school’s broader capacity problems. Eastbank High was built to accommodate about 1,200 pupils but currently has 2,063 enrolled, 863 more than it was designed for. The school needs about 1,200 desks and 600 chairs, despite 1,150 pieces of furniture delivered this year.
“Every desk and every chair matters, particularly in a school experiencing severe pressure on its available resources,” said Maile.
Eastbank High’s struggles reflect a broader problem playing out across Gauteng. Maile revealed earlier this year that pupil enrolment in the province has more than doubled since 1995, from about 1.4-million to more than 2.8-million, driven largely by migration and urbanisation into the province. Nearly half of Gauteng’s 2,111 public schools, he said, are operating above capacity.
The pressure has been especially visible in Alexandra. At nearby Bovet Primary School, parents staged protests earlier this year after some pupils were forced to sit on the floor due to a shortage of desks and classroom space.
Cembi said at the time overcrowded classrooms made it difficult for teachers to give pupils individual attention, warning the situation was “unhealthy” and “hazardous” for pupils and staff.
Maile said the province needs at least 200 new schools to ease the pressure at a cost of about R35bn, funding the department does not currently have. In the meantime, he said measures such as mobile classrooms and additional furniture are being used to relieve overcrowding at the worst affected schools.
The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) has thrown its full support behind the Food and Allied Workers’ Union (FAWU) and thousands of sugar workers who have embarked on protected strike action following the breakdown of wage negotiations.
At the heart of the dispute are demands for improved wages and benefits, as workers push back against rising living costs and what they describe as an unfair burden being placed on those who produce the industry’s wealth.
In a statement earlier this month, Premier Group said the business was no longer sustainable. About 90% of the factory’s production was exported.
SAFTU National Spokesperson Newton Masuku says the Sugar Manufacturing and Refining Employers’ Association (SMREA) has offered a mere 5.4% wage increase, while attempting to present an additional 0.6% as though it were part of the current offer, despite making it conditional on a future government decision regarding tariff protection.
“FAWU is entirely correct to reject this attempt to shift regulatory risk onto workers. Workers cannot pay rent, buy food or settle electricity bills with promises contingent on decisions over which they have no control. Their expenses are immediate and unconditional; their wages must be the same. The strike takes place against the backdrop of one of the worst cost-of-living crises in democratic South Africa. Inflation may have moderated, but workers continue to confront relentless increases in electricity tariffs, transport costs, municipal charges, food prices and housing expenses. Millions of workers remain trapped in working poverty despite being employed full-time, while nearly half of the country’s labour force remains unemployed, underemployed or discouraged from seeking work. Employers cannot expect workers to absorb these mounting costs through wage restraint while expecting them to maintain productivity and support their families,” said Masuku.
In a joint statement, various unions, including COSATU, SACTWU, Solidarity, AFADWU, NUFAS and the Canning Fruit Producers Association (CFPA), have called on Tulbagh CEO Kobus Gertenbach to suspend the retrenchment consultations for 12 to 24 months.
“First, there should be no merger-related retrenchments for three years. Secondly, any retrenchments that do occur must be presumed to be merger-related, unless Premier proves otherwise to the Competition Commission. Premier has not yet discharged the burden of proving that these retrenchments are unrelated to the merger. Nevertheless, it has triggered a retrenchment process. On the facts as they stand, Premier should not be proceeding with this process at all. Whatever else the Competition Commission may decide in its current investigations, we believe it was reckless to signal the desire for closure and retrenchment to workers, farmers and the market before getting the approval of the Commission. These risks create a self-fulfilling cycle that erodes the business case for this factory, potentially making it harder to save,” the statement reads.
