Cape Town - Former contract employees and a labour organisation are expected to go head-to-head against the City on Monday, motivated to have the 68 ex-employees reinstated.
The Back to Work Campaign (B2WC) are supporting the workers at the CCMA after their contracts were not renewed two years ago.
One such worker, Ronell Williams-Adonis, said she felt aggrieved by the City’s actions to not have her and a number of other people further employed.
“I have been working on contract for the City since 2017 and ever since then, my employment has been renewed on a three month-to-month contract basis.
“During this time working as a Public Transport Interchanges (PTIs) employee where we would see to the hygiene and cleaning of taxi ranks and interchanges, I earned about R3 000 per week.
“Thereafter the City then changed us to EPWP employees which saw a drastic change in income.
“It was really bad because I was struggling as a single mom at the time. This continued until 2020 when Covid hit and since then we have been without a job.
“The City had red-flagged a number of employees after we voiced our upset about the matter.
“It really is unfair after having had a job for so long now to suddenly be without anything. I struggle to make ends meet. All I want is to be reinstated but this time as a permanent employee,” said Williams-Adonis.
“It really is unfair after having had a job for so long now to suddenly be without anything. I struggle to make ends meet. All I want is to be reinstated but this time as a permanent employee,” said Williams-Adonis.
B2WC provincial secretary Mike Kumalo said they were confident of victory in their case against the City. Kumalo said the former employees worked “for more than the stipulated three months at the PTIs through Affirmative Portfolios, a labour broker”.
“We call on the Mayor of Cape Town and senior management in the City of Cape Town to carefully review cases they take on litigation, they are unnecessarily wasting ratepayers’ money by taking on this case. They pay for expensive lawyers, and unnecessarily cause the workers to contract legal assistance in a case where a precedent has already been set in which the City’s chances of success are very slim. On Monday September 5, we hope for a positive outcome in the case of Ronell Williams and 67 Others,” said Kumalo.
Enquiries to the City and CCMA had not been answered by deadline on Sunday.
Cape Times