PHUTI MOSOMANE
COSATU spokesperson Sizwe Pamla has described the move to prevent municipal workers from holding any positions in a political party as “ludicrous,” this as the labour federation supports its affiliated union, the South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU), in their decision to challenge the constitutionality of the Municipal Systems Amendment Act in the Constitutional Court.
The labour federation said the Municipal Systems Amendment Act of 2022 is “fundamentally flawed and simply unconstitutional. The Amendment Act introduced a new blanket ban on all 350 000 municipal employees from holding office at any level in a political party.”
According to Pamla, the initial draft of the Bill, which was agreed upon by the ANC-led Alliance and government, only proposed limiting political association for municipal managers and the senior managers who report directly to them.
“This agreement and provisions were quietly and clumsily amended by Parliament on the instigation of the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) and extended to include all municipal employees. This has taken it from being a narrow limitation of the rights of a few, to the blanket prohibition of the rights of all municipal employees,” he said.
The motivation for the original limitation of rights of municipal managers was based upon the belief that when such managers held office in a political party they could undermine or overrule the Mayors and Mayoral Committee Councillors they were meant to account to.
“To extend this to include municipal security guards, cleaners and refuse collectors is at best ludicrous and a shocking attack on the constitutional rights of workers. If this undermining of the Constitution is allowed to stand, it will later be extended to public servants, SOE employees and eventually private sector workers. This will be a slippery slope to the erosion of our hard-won democracy,” Pamla.
Union officials report that thousands of municipal employees are now receiving letters from their managers, warning them that unless they step down from any political positions they may hold, they will face dismissal from their jobs.
Cosatu says it has raised this matter repeatedly with the Ministry for Cooperative Governance, the ANC, and Parliament.
“Despite their agreeing that this must be corrected through an Amendment Bill, they have yet to do so.”
SAMWU previously took an earlier version of the Amendment Act to the Constitutional Court and won the case.
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