Samwu tackles ban on members in party jobs

• Constitutional Court challenge • Labour lawyer backs Cosatu

The SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) is set to approach the Constitutional Court to challenge controversial legislation banning all municipal workers from holding political party positions.

The Municipal Systems Amendment Act, which was signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2022, is in contravention of clauses in the bill of rights which state that every citizen is free to make political choices, including the right to participate in the activities of, or recruit members for, a political party, and to campaign for a political party or cause.

Samwu, the largest trade union in the local government sector, representing more than 160,000 of the country’s estimated 350,000 municipal workers, is an affiliate of labour federation Cosatu and a key ally of the ANC. The governing party has always relied on its alliance partners for election support.

Samwu members are largely ANC supporters and sometimes members. The law the union is challenging means municipal workers cannot hold political positions at branch, regional, provincial or national level.

Cosatu national spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said the legislation is “fundamentally flawed and simply unconstitutional” and the labour federation supports Samwu’s decision to challenge its constitutionality. “The original draft of the bill that had been agreed to by the ANC-led [tripartite] alliance and government was to only apply this limitation of political association to municipal managers and the senior managers reporting directly to them,” said Pamla.

“This agreement and provisions were quietly and clumsily amended by parliament on the instigation of the SA 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 a blanket prohibition of the rights of all municipal employees.”

Pamla said the motivation for the original limitation of rights of municipal managers was based on the belief that when such managers held office in a political party they could undermine or overrule mayors and mayoral committee members 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 [state-owned enterprise] employees and eventually private sector workers,” he said.

“This will be a slippery slope to the eroding of our hard-won democracy. Thousands of municipal employees are now receiving letters from their managers warning them that unless they stand down from whichever position they may hold in their political party, they will be dismissed from their jobs.”

Pamla said Cosatu had raised

MUNICIPAL WORKERS CANNOT HOLD POLITICAL POSITIONS AT BRANCH, REGIONAL, PROVINCIAL OR NATIONAL LEVEL

the matter repeatedly with the department of co-operative governance & traditional affairs, 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 this amendment act to the Constitutional Court and won,” he said. “The federation is pleased that they have decided to do so again and will be supporting Samwu in this defence of workers’ hard-won constitutional rights.”

Labour lawyer Michael Bagraim said: “I personally think that, in law, Cosatu is correct. You can’t stop a person joining an association — a political party is an association. It doesn’t make sense at all. I think it’s an infringement on the right to work and association. I would agree with Cosatu on this one, I don’t know why the ANC is doing that.”

Samwu general secretary Dumisane Magagula said several municipalities wrote to their workers with an ultimatum to quit as political office-bearers or as municipal employees.

“As per the directives issued by the department of co-operative governance & traditional affairs late in 2022, workers will have up until November 2023 to resign from political office if they wish to continue being in the employ of any municipality,” said Magagula.

Samwu has called on its members to “ignore the ultimatum” as the union, along with Cosatu, “are in the process of challenging the amendments”.

Samwu national spokesperson Papikie Mohale said the union was preparing legal papers to be filed at the Constitutional Court.

Salga had not responded to a request for comment by late Monday afternoon.