Workers News - 15 000 comrades out on strike against privatisation
- Authors: SAMWU
- Date: Sep 1997
- Subjects: SAMWU
- Language: English, Afrikaans
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/113336 , vital:33749
- Description: The servicing of the members is a very important instrument that has to be sharpened every day if need be. In essence it is absolutely necessary to service the members, for the capacity building on policy of worker control of the organisation; building confidence, defending, developing and advancing the programmes of the organisation. We need to also build organisational skills based not on reckless or appetite militancy, but on radical concrete co-ordinated militancy. The correct flow of information is the key on empowering of the members, so that they can be able to contribute in solving the problems and take an appropriate decisions on organisational issues.
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- Date Issued: Sep 1997
Workers News - Special tenth anniversary edition
- Authors: SAMWU
- Date: Nov 1997
- Subjects: SAMWU
- Language: English, Zulu, Sotho and Afrikaans
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/113358 , vital:33752
- Description: It brought change in Local Government. Although this strike was a success for the organisation, we suffered losses. Many workers were dismissed and many workers suffered injuries at the hands of the security forces. This strike forced the employers to take us seriously. Another strike took place in 1995. Here again we had casualties. Workers were shot and beaten by police in places like Pietersburg, Kuruman, Bethlehem. We have workers in Groblersdal who were dismissed during that strike who have not been re-instated to this day. We have tried our best, and will continue to try. A funny incident during my term was when Cdes Tom Ngobeni, Mike Mthembu, Themba Khumalo and I called a march in Pretoria. The police station commander asked us how many workers would be marching, and Cde Tom replied "40 thousand!" When it came to the day of the march, the army lined a long street. The soldiers were heavily armed and barricaded both sides of the street. But when the march started, we were only 150! So the soldiers were far more than the marchers! The police said that they were going to sue SAMWU, but they ended up doing nothing. Now every time we want to march in Pretoria, this station commander still remembers this incident. As President of SAMWU, I feel great about the members. SAMWU members like their organisation. Wherever you go they are proud about their trade union. Even in areas where service to members is weak, those members are still proud of their union. The Union came in as a saviour to many workers, taking into account the conditions we used to work under. I always believe that if you are elected by people they should not be afraid to talk to you. I don't like it when a President is above the workers, and the workers are not permitted to say anything about their President. You have to be open to criticism, and that is the only way you can be built by others. I enjoy being a trade unionist first and foremost, but it is not an easy job to be a President. You miss your family because you never spend time with your family. My children have grown but they have never spent much time with me, except at night when I arrive home late. I think SAMWU will grow more and more. We have grown since our launch by over 100 thousand members. One of the reasons for this huge growth is that we always have a target at every Congress. During this period we didn't have a target, and that is why we did not grow so much. We need now to say that by the next Congress we should be at least 150-180 thousand in SAMWU, and make sure that we work hard to target that number. We also need public sector unity to make sure there is proper restructuring of Local Government and also to rid the public sector of corruption. Although corruption is not a new thing - it has been there for years but we need to come together to make sure that we instill that discipline within all workers in the public sector, even those that are not our members. We must make sure that all corruption in Local Government is rooted out, especially those workers in traffic departments. There are corrupt elements in every traffic department in this country. We need to build an image that will gain us respect from those communities that we are supposed to serve. Most of our members understand that SAMWU is opposed to privatisation. Once the state assets are in the hands of the private sector, government will be dependent on business. As SAMWU we say that we need a strong state to lead us, instead of the private sector leading. This will be one of our biggest challenges in the next few years. I have an important message to all municipal workers on our tenth anniversary. I would like to say that we need to improve our service delivery and make sure that we are closer to our communities. Communities must understand our problems and we must also understand their problems. We need to make sure that we democratise our union. Where there are weaknesses, members must make sure that those weaknesses are addressed. If we don't do things correctly, workers should correct us.
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- Date Issued: Nov 1997
Workers News - The war against privatisation 1997
- Authors: SAMWU
- Date: June 1997
- Subjects: SAMWU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/113667 , vital:33818
- Description: SAMWU continues to fight against the privatisation of more and more services. Even’ region is facing different struggles, but let’s not forget that we are all fighting against one thing: the notion that services should be provided for profit and not to meet needs. Let’s learn about each other’s struggles so that we can prepare for united mass action! Local Authorities here are proposing to privatise the security departments of Duiwelskloof and Potgiet- ersrus TLC. In Naboom- spruit, it has been proposed that meter reading services be contracted out to private companies. Council has also spoken of putting out tenders for the maintenance of the Tzaneen cemetry. So comrades can see that we are fighting privatisation on many fronts! In Queenstown, council is attempting to privatise the refuse collection service. IMATU has joined SAMWU in rejecting this. At the moment we are trying to arrange a meeting with community structures in order to put our position forward to them. Umtata municipality proposed privatisation of the ambulance and fire departments, but noting union opposition, scheduled a meeting with SAMWU and IMATU to discuss this further. Our Aberdeen comrades are to be congratulated! We have heard that they have gone from door to door in their communities educating others about the dangers of privatisation!
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- Date Issued: June 1997
Workers News Nov 1997 - Special tenth anniversary edition
- Authors: SAMWU
- Date: Nov 1997
- Subjects: SAMWU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/137959 , vital:37577
- Description: I started with the municipality in 1970 as a plumber with the technical section of the JCC. There were no unions then that organised Black workers - we were not allowed to belong to any union at that time. We were first given help by the Industrial Aid Society, then the FOSATU Workers Project, and then I became one of the first shopstewards in TGWU in 1980. It was difficult in the early days of TGWU - other workers would be afraid even to sit next to you in case they were victimised by the employer. In those days there were no wage negotiations - we used to get a 20c increase. The process in launching SAMWU was a very difficult one. We started the merger talks even before COSATU was launched in 1985. But when COSATU launched, that Congress took a decision that organiations in the municipal sector should merge. It was not an easy process but because we were all for unity in the end we achieved what we set out to do. My first main challenge as SAMWU President was to unite Local Government workers. In our history Local Government workers had no national union, whereas workers in other sectors had national unions. But in many ways, after SAMWU's first Congress, things became easier for municipal workers. We had established a solid base from which to challenge the employers.
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- Date Issued: Nov 1997
Municipal Infrastructure Investment Framework
- Authors: SAMWU
- Date: Mar 1996
- Subjects: SAMWU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/111085 , vital:33376
- Description: We enclose our preliminary response to the report. This serves as our contribution to the agenda for the meeting currently scheduled for 22 March 1996 in Cape Town. Intended to commence early and continue until lunch time - if not beyond. We record that we have discussed the representation of different departments which need to be present from Governments side -including yourselves, Constitutional Development, Water Affairs, Finance, and Labour. We would further note that the participants need to understand that we are not impressed in general when we arrange meetings only to have details change at the last moment. From our side you can expect a delegation of between 12-14 persons including representatives of our 9 regions and national office bearers. SAMWU first became aware of the MIIF during the Portfolio Committee Public Hearing on local government legislation held in November 1995. A copy of the full document was received by our office in mid-January 1996. A covering letter indicated that a key issue in the MIIF was the " nature and extent of private sector involvement in extending service delivery". A meeting was held, on 21 February 1996, between the Minister without Portfolio, the Director General in the RDP Office and a delegation from SAMWU. It is necessary to note that this first formal contact was very belated and does not serve to engender trust in any process. We do not accept that any serious attempt was made to involve the union prior to the document being made public. It is our view that the attitude to unions , as reflected in the document, was one of “unions will have to be accommodated “ (our Italics). Implying more of a necessary evil than any concern for a partnership. “ Partnerships” being reserved for business, small entrepreneurs and big capital. We have been assured that the document remain a consultative document and that we can still make our input. The fact is that it is already taken to represent government policy and is being acted upon in such terms. A case in point being the planning already being done by the DBS A in respect to water and sanitation (Municipal Engineer - Jan 96 ). It is necessary that Government correct this impression if further consultation is to be taken seriously. It is our view that in its current form the document is being used as a means of mounting an attack on the direct provision of services by local government.
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- Date Issued: Mar 1996
Restructuring the municipal sector to deliver on the RDP
- Authors: SAMWU
- Date: Oct 1996
- Subjects: SAMWU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/118076 , vital:34593
- Description: One of the biggest threats to RDP delivery in the municipal sector is that of privatisation. The Conference re-affirmed the long standing anti-privatisation position of SAMWU. In order to advance this position, the following proposals are made: That the Union develops a clear campaign to promote our opposition to privatisation and our support for the retention of basic services under public control and ownership through the “turning around” of local government services. That Regions discuss the elements of this campaign and that this is finalised in the next NEC. That for the campaign to succeed, it must be mass based. We should focus on getting worker and community support for our fight to retain services in public hands. An essential element of the campaign would be to ensure implementation of the last COSATU CEC resolution which calls for basic services like water, electricity, housing etc. to remain under public ownership and control. This includes identifying those services which should be brought under public ownership and control(nationalisation). Another important feature of the campaign should be the integration of the research findings(the joint ILRIG/SAMWU Research Project) into the programme. The research should both illustrate international and national consequences of past privatisation experiments as well as illustrating public sector superiority in the delivery of basic services(democratic alternatives to privatisation).
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- Date Issued: Oct 1996
Workers News - 1998 A fighting year for SAMWU
- Authors: SAMWU
- Date: Nov 1996
- Subjects: SAMWU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/137970 , vital:37579
- Description: You will all remember that in past editions of this magazine we have touched on the anti-privatisation campaign which all comrades have been active in. I must say it is a great pleasure for me to write this message, to thank all the NGO's, international labour movement, individuals, COSATU and community organisations for all their support. The process of implementing the antiprivatisation campaign has not been an easy one. Just after we started with the campaign, the union was attacked and claims were made that SAMWU was counter-revolutionary. The attacks were clearly intended to shift the focus from the campaign to mud- slinging. They could not match us when it came to knowing the facts of privatisation and it’s terrible effects on the community, and the role politicians play once services are in the hands of the private sector. Despite these attacks, SAMWU still feels that the resolution we adopted to oppose privatisation was the correct one and we hope it will be the correct position for years to come.
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- Date Issued: Nov 1996
Progress report on the merger
- Authors: SAMWU
- Date: Aug 1995
- Subjects: SAMWU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/110611 , vital:33313
- Description: It has been agreed that SAMWU will register under the PSLRA to allow the new union to be able to be registered under the Public and the Private sectors.This is called a piggy bag model. The NEC will be composed of the newly elected NOB’s and Heads Of Departments together with one delegate from the. respective regions'..The NOB's will go around launching the regions after the merger congress.
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- Date Issued: Aug 1995
SAMWU NEWS Volume 1 - Rebuild and Unite
- Authors: SAMWU
- Date: Sep 1995
- Subjects: SAMWU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/113303 , vital:33743
- Description: As a democratic Union and driven by its members, it is imperative for us to bring about the transformation within the Cape Town Branch and the City Council. The Shopstewards, our elected representatives, cannot do it by themselves and therefore need the support and input from their members they represent. We need to: develope new leadership and build capacity within the organisation, seriously address workplace democracy and joint decision-making address gender equality at the workplace, develope the skills and competencies of workers, vigorously implement education, training and development programmes through Affirmative Action for those previously disadvantaged. WHAT IS YOUR ROLE ? We should also dissuade other SAMWU members from crossing over to other Unions for material benefits but that they look closely at the history of these Unions and whether they can adequately protect the rights of workers and whether they have the interest of workers at heart. We have seen how other Unions are recruiting members by offering them all kinds of elaborate schemes, but not addressing the fundamental issues of workers’ rights, protection of job security, the right to strike and the question of narrowing the discriminate wage gap. We need to protect and fight against these policies of differentiation between workers. As we can see from the above, many challenges and work are lying ahead of us to build and unite the strong union. Now is the time - let us face the challenges together to build strong union and worker leadership.
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- Date Issued: Sep 1995
Conditions of service of SAMWU staff
- Authors: SAMWU
- Date: 1994
- Subjects: SAMWU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/178916 , vital:43019
- Description: This document is as adopted by the SAMWU NEC in November 1994. It serves to define the wages and conditions of employment applicable to all SAMWU staff and is the only conditions of employment document of the union. Employees who were staff of a pre-existing trade union which merged with SAMWU who have conditions which were previously declared personal to holder ( in terms of merger agreements ) are required to examine this document and to individually register where they, consider that their terms differ from this document. No improved condition hereby introduced can be taken to apply to such employees as a matter of right . They have a choice of registering specific conditions as ” personal to holder " or converting to the full set of conditions as contained herein. Where they register a condition as personal to holder the NEC will decide whether new conditions hereby introduced are also applicable to them. It is further recorded that whilst these conditions of service are open to be ammended from time to time ; as-the NEC may decide , any representations for amendments shall normally only be considered during the later part*of-each year.
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- Date Issued: 1994
South African local government bargaining council
- Authors: SAMWU
- Subjects: SAMWU
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/173941 , vital:42423
- Description: The headings of the clauses in this agreement are for the purpose of convenience and reference only and shall not be used in the interpretation of nor modify nor amplify the terms of this agreement for any clause hereof.
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