DA calls on De Lille to stop wasting State resources on appealing costly arbitration outcomes
26 April 2021
The DA calls on Minister Patricia De Lille to respect the decision of the General Public Service Sector Bargaining Council and reinstate 65 contract employees of the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI) in accordance with arbitration awards.
In December 2019, 85 contract workers of the Department took annual leave and on their return in January 2020, 63 were advised that their contracts had not been renewed. Some of these workers had been on renewed fixed-term contracts for as long as 15 years. Most had been there for over 2 years with a minimum of 2 renewals.
The workers took the DPWI to the Bargaining Council and last month, the Council issued an arbitration award in favour of the workers. The award stipulates that the contracts of the 63 workers be reinstated with effect from the renewal of the 22 whose contracts were renewed, “without the loss of benefits”.
This follows on two other arbitration awards made against the Department in 2020 – one in August and one in December. In both cases, the applicants are required to be reinstated from the date of the expiration of the previous contract and that their salaries and benefits be paid retrospectively. Just these two costs amount to more than R2 million.