More violence despite peace agreement

LEPHALALE - After two months of strike action at Eskom’s Medupi power station building site, Numsa workers returned to work on Monday. The strike officially ended last Friday when Numsa and the Public Enterprises Minister, Malusi Gigaba, met in Johannesburg where Numsa subsequently signed an agreement to return to work. 
Northern News spoke to Numsa energy sector co-ordinator, Stephen Nhlapo following a meeting with Numsa members at the stadium in Marapong on Monday morning. “All our workers are returning to work today and we are happy with the agreement.” According to Nhlapo employers agreed to renegotiate the Project Labour agreement and assured Numsa that employees who were previously issued a final warning will not be dismissed when they return to work.
“The warning they will receive for participating in the strike will not impact on previous warnings and no-one will be dismissed.”
Nhlapo added that the union will not allow contractors to “play around” with the interpretation of the agreement. According to Nhlapo contractors agreed to pay workers R2000 to see them through the month.
He also made it clear that Numsa is committed to the project recovery programme and believes that all deadlines will be met as planned.
But reports of more violent strike action surfaced on Tuesday when workers claimed that they were not paid the R2000 as promised. Vehicles were stoned and spokesperson for the police, W.O. Frans Mokoena, confirmed that police had to use rubber bullets to disperse a crowd who were pelting rocks at vehicles. According to Mokoena a TLB crane and a security vehicle were damaged on Tuesday.