Pikitup workers are on strike again, not for the first time this year, and in all likelihood, not the last time this year.
The striking workers have threatened the staff of the alternate service providers that Pikitup has engaged to collect refuse around the city, and Pikitup cannot even tell the public what they are doing about it for fear of violence. The utility has even arranged for garbage to be collected under cover of night.
The strikers are going further than just stopping garbage collection, they are rampaging through the city tipping over dustbins and making a mess. They get very upset when they are referred to as hooligans, but do nothing to curb the chaos they create.
In December last year, Pikitup workers went on strike and marched through Johannesburg. The inner city was knee-deep in garbage, vermin multiplied, and rats and cockroaches ran in packs through the streets. It was not Pikitup employees who cleaned it up, the utility had to engage the Red Ants to pick up the mess after the strike was over. Additionally, they had to hire security for the Red Ants because of continued violence. The cost of the December strike was reported to be R2 million a day, which works out to R500 per day for each of the 4 000 striking workers, definitely something to consider.
The striking workers rampage, the public sits with a pile of rotting garbage, the municipality incurs extra expenses, and the city suffers.
South African law allows workers to strike and will consider a strike to be ‘protected’ if the proper process has been followed. If not, the strike will be considered an unprotected strike or illegal strike. The main difference between the two is that workers cannot be dismissed for participating in a protected strike. In either case, the no work, no pay principle applies which means that workers will not be paid for the days they do not work.
Pikitup has threatened to dismiss the striking workers this time around, and it would be justified. The workers who are striking are doing so illegally and violently and so providing two reasons for dismissal.
The workers are putting the entire city at risk again and again, and it’s not acceptable.
