Johnathan Paoli
The Labour Court on Saturday upheld the Tshwane municipality’s recent decision to withhold the salaries of over 300 striking employees.
The court found that the principle of “no work, no pay” entitles an employer to withhold payment of remuneration to its employees where no services are rendered during an unprotected strike.
The Independent Municipal and Allied Trade Union had previously applied for a contempt of court order against two senior managers in the group human’s capital management department, including the city manager, for not paying August salaries to its members.
Tshwane municipality spokesperson Selby Bokaba said at the end of July, the Labour Court granted the City of Tshwane an urgent interim interdict against its striking employees and declared the strike unlawful and unprotected with the court subsequently making the interim order permanent last week.
Imatu Tshwane manager Lynette Burns-Coetzee said that the city had withheld the salaries of 189 of its members which were supposed to have been paid on 26 August.
On 31 August, the Labour Court ordered that the outstanding salaries be paid immediately or by 1 September at the latest, with 170 out of 189 members being subsequently paid.
The Imatu manager said that there remained the unfair dismissal of 19 of the union’s members who were fired for participating in the strike when they didn’t, and that one member was on maternity leave during the strike, but was also dismissed.
She said that the Imatu lost the court application due to its inability to prove the municipality intended on not paying the affected members, and added that whilst they are planning to fight the unfair dismissal of some of its members, the union felt victorious for ensuring the majority were eventually paid.
“Tshwane is in the media every second day about how victorious they are, but behind the scenes they followed a flawed process in dismissing people,” Burns-Coetzee said.
The provision of services in the municipality has been severely affected since July after certain employees embarked on a strike to force the city to honour the last year of the three-year wage agreement for 2023/2024 of 5.4%.
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