STAFF ARRIVE AT 8AM, LOCKED OUT

NGWENYA – Home Affairs employees stationed at Ngwenya Border Gate used the Easter holidays to prove their worth.

The workers’ worth was indeed felt when they refused to resume duty at 6:30am but showed up to work at 8am.
There was a total jam at the border gate on Thursday morning as only handful senior officers and supervisors were attending to travellers.
The scene was marked with the visibility of police officers in uniform who were ready to restore peace in the event the scene turned nasty.

However, everything was done calmly with about 13 assistant immigrations officers and gate attendants emerging from their houses nearby at 7:50am.
This is also the time that the police supervisor ordered her team to position itself at the main entrance where the ready-for-work officers were expected to enter.
A supervisor identified only as Gule addressed the officers from the main gate where he called out the names of only six whom he said he wanted to resume work.
“I will only allow shift C to take up duty and these are the people on this list,” he said brandishing a piece of paper that he had in his hand.

One of the Shop Stewards Sanele Magagula said since they had adopted the “we all die or we all live” principle, they refused to let only the six go to work.
“We were all ready to go to work so we felt its either we all go in or we all remain out of work.”
However, after consulting with their union, the workers allowed the six employees to take up the day’s shift, which saw the long queue at the border moving a bit faster.
The rest of the team returned to their houses while shop stewards went to court.

At about 2pm things were returning to normal following a court ruling, which was in favour of the employees.
Magagula said this was only the first round of their demands because they also intend filing a claim for their overtime pay dating back to June 2015.
He said otherwise they were happy to have the court’s backing on this Easter Weekend’s overtime pay.

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