SOMERSET East residents have been notified via letter from the manager of Blue Crane Route Municipality, Thabiso Klaas, that as from October 10, municipal workers have been engaged in an illegal strike.
The municipality has applied and been granted a court interdict by the Labour Court declaring this action as illegal and unprotected. According to Klaas, they are dealing with the matter to ensure that they enforce the court’s decision in this regard.
Residents and businesses have also been advised to keep refuse bags in their yards until the matter has been resolved as striking workers empty refuse bags in the streets when on strike.
Unfortunately businesses in Nojoli Street did not comply with this request.
On October 23, when the workers started singing songs at the Town Hall and toyi-toyed down Nojoli Street, mounds and mounds of litter were strewn in their wake.
The municipality and all relevant offices were closed and no work was done. Several efforts to contact the municipal manager and different departments of the municipality by telephone were fruitless by the time of going to print.
In the meantime the town looks like a rubbish dump.
The rubbish and litter have still not been removed and the slightest wind spreads the litter far and wide across town.
