Long-serving eThekwini EPWP workers thrown back into poverty

After working for 11 years as a street sweeper for the eThekwini Municipality, Slindile Sokhela says she was thrown back to unemployment and poverty when the City terminated her Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) contract in July.

She said this had left her struggling to feed her family.

Although the salary was not enough to take care of her needs, the 41-year-old breadwinner was able to feed her three children and her two underage siblings. She said she was among 4 000 EPWP workers who had been pushed out of the programme after many years of earning a salary.

“After having worked for so many years, we only learned about the termination of our services through a letter (municipality internal memorandum) that was posted on social media on July 5,” said Sokhela.

She said few days later, their supervisor confirmed what they saw on social media.

For her, this meant a return to poverty because according to EPWP employment conditions, she did not qualify to contribute to the Unemployment Insurance Fund. The conditions also stated that such workers would not receive severance pay on termination of their services.

She said, she and her colleagues received their last payments of between R3 500 and R4 000 on July 15.

“I am now back to poverty,” said Sokhela, who is the eThekwini region deputy secretary of the Municipal and Allied Trade Union of South Africa (MATUSA), the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu)’s affiliate.

Sokhela was now the secretary of the task team that was fighting for permanent employment of long-serving EPWP workers.

However, her union only approached the CCMA for more than 1 400 of its City EPWP members.

According to labourguide.co.za, temporary employment was deemed permanent after more than three months irrespective of being renewed or not.

However, there were exceptional circumstances where the temporary work could exceed three months, which included people “employed for the purpose of an official public works scheme or similar public job creation scheme”.

One of the EPWP conditions of service was that workers on an EPWP were temporary or contract basis and would not be employed “for longer than 24 months in any five-year cycle on an EPWP”.

But Sokhela said her employment was never interrupted or terminated during the 11-year period.

According to an internal memorandum that was leaked on social media, eThekwini project co-ordination senior manager, Andile Shange, told EPWP project manager co-ordinators and administrators on July 2 that a budget cut had prevented the City from paying EPWP participants.

Shange said in the document that the municipal manager and chief financial officer had stated that the City did not have savings to reward all EPWP participants.

In response to questions, City spokesperson, Gugu Sisilana, said the council had late last month given the City the green light to resuscitate the programme although it had “deviated from its policy objectives and conditions”.

“As we are embarking on a new recruitment drive this month. We will be using this opportunity also to regularise the programme.

“As a result, for the 2024/25 financial year, the budget permits us to recruit 1 276 participants, said Sisilana.

The CCMA had ruled last year that Sokhela and colleagues should be employed permanently because of having worked under the programme for many more years than required by law.

The City challenged the CCMA award, saying it was not afforded an opportunity to file its response on the matter.

Matusa deputy general secretary, Thulani Ngwenya, said instead of implementing the CCMA award, the City terminated the services of the participants. He said some of them had worked for up to 15 years.

“We are trying to make sure that the award is implemented as the employer rescinded the award. We continue to file a dispute against the employer,” said Ngwenya.

In the award issued last year, the CCMA Commissioner Jerald Vedan ruled that the City had flouted the EPWP contract condition, which had stated that participants should not have been kept in the system for more than two years.

The participants, according to Vaden, worked similar hours to their permanent colleagues and did the same jobs, but did not get the same benefits as their permanent colleagues.

“The applicants are to be afforded all benefits as pertains to the permanent employees,” read the award.

Sisilana said the City had since successfully opposed the CCMA award to employ the beneficiaries permanently.

“As a rescinded award holds no legal effect, the municipality was under no obligation to implement it,” she said.

Another aggrieved former EPWP beneficiary. Simo Mbatha, from Mtubatuba in northern KwaZulu-Natal, had hoped that since he worked under the programme since 2017, he would be absorbed permanently.

“I supported my sisters at home. I was about to start my own family,” said Mbatha.

Action SA provincial chairperson, Zwakele Mncwango, had for the past few years been trying to convince the municipality to consider taking some EPWP beneficiaries permanently.

“I proposed that those who have worked more than five years doing the same job as those who are permanent should be hired permanently, because they are being exploited,” said Mncwango.

Sunday Tribune