|
Workers invade 2010 stadium
06/03/2008 18:30 - (SA)
Molaole Montsho
Port Elizabeth - A hundred members of the SA Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) were
arrested on Thursday after invading the Nelson Mandela 2010 Stadium in
Port Elizabeth, the union said.
Branch chair Nomvula Hadi, who was also arrested, said striking
workers were leaving the stadium when police without warning opened
fire on the group with plastic-coated metal bullets and teargas, and
arrested them.
"We are put in different cells and I'm not sure how many of us have
been arrested," she told Sapa from a cell, in a faint voice overpowered
by songs from workers around her who had been arrested.
"We have not yet been charged," she said.
Hadi said provincial chair David Toyise, who was dismissed by the
council in January this year, was also arrested. Interdict
Siphiwo Ndunyana, Samwu provincial secretary, said the council tried
to get an interdict against the strike, but failed.
"There is no reason for the police therefore to open fire on us and
teargas us. Our strike is legal. In a democratic South Africa we don't
expect this from the police," he said.
About a thousand Samwu members occupied the partly-built Nelson
Mandela 2010 stadium in a bid to force the council to meet its demands.
"The union decided to take this step after a special mayoral
committee refused to meet Samwu's demands on Wednesday," said Ndunyana.
He said the committee told the union to meet with the human
resources department of the city, with which it had previously failed
to reach an agreement. Recruitment
policy
The union has demanded that the council withdraw its recruitment
policy, that it reinstate Toyise and that the
council address the health crisis.
It said there was only one permanent staff member at each and every
clinic in the Metro.
All other nurses and clinic staff were on month-to-month contracts.
Samwu had vowed to occupy the stadium until all its demands were
met. Mayor asked to quit
The Mbuyiselo Ngwenda District of the SA Communist Party (SACP) in
the Eastern Cape has called on both the mayor, Nondumiso Maphazi, and
the municipal manager, Graham Richards, to resign or be dismissed
because they do not have capacity to lead the municipality.
District secretary Zukile Jodwana said the SACP supported the strike
by municipal workers and would continue to mobilise communities to show
solidarity with them and to join them when they went on strike.
"As the SACP we believe that comrade Toyise's dismissal was
politically motivated and is part of a broader agenda to deal with all
worker leaders who are critical of the manner in which the municipality
is conducting itself, in particular those who are communist."
The Nelson Mandela Bay Metro council could not be reached for
comment.
|
News
