Mayor in near fist fight with workers leader as council fails to settle wages

The Mayor of cash strapped Municipality of Gwanda Councillor Knowledge Ndhlovu is reported to have resorted to a fist fight challenge with Municipal workers union leader Sipho Ndlovu in a meeting to address outstanding wages on Friday evening.

Reports from within the Municipal labour force claim that the Mayor walked over from the podium to the floor challenging the workers leader to a fist fight as talks on five month wages due to the workers were drawing to a deadlock. According to the sources, the Municipality made a settlement plan with the department of labour late last year to clear the outstanding wages by 28 February 2015.

As of close of business on the deadline date council had not paid the workers the outstanding wages. Following the failure by council to settle the wages, the workers union lodged a claim against council at the High Court demanding for the attachment of council movable properties to settle the bill.

On receiving the court order, council is said to have convened an urgent meeting with the entire council work force where the council offered the workers unserviced high density residential stands in lieu for the outstanding wages. The discussion over the settlement of wages using the stands got hot in the meeting as workers rejected the offer claiming that they can not accept unserviced stands which council valued at over $8000 each.

The workers claim that they not only rejected the stands because of the over valuation by council but they also claimed that they can not trust council to their offer as council has previously made a number of settlement offers which were never fulfilled. The workers further claimed that council was offering the stands as full payment of the wages regardless of how much each person was owed.

In two separate offer letters provided to the media, one employee is owed about $2400 while another is owed $4300 and both have been offered the same size stands valued at $8 340 with $6 000 said to be the cost of servicing the stands. The offer letters warn employees that if they failed to sign and bring the letters back to council by end of business on Monday 23 March the conclusion would be that the worker has accepted the offer. On the other hand there is no provision in the letters for those rejecting the offer which the workers described as tossing a coin with heads on both sides.

The sources claim that when the workers leader, Ndlovu, declined to accept the offer for stands on behalf of the workers telling council to send their offer to the High Court, Mayor Ndlovu lost his temper and threw insults at the workers leader challenging him to come for a fist fight if "he was trying to be difficult and playing MDC politics." Sources claim that the mayor was so furious as he made his way down the podium pushing away fellow councillors who were trying to stop him. The mayor is said to have been blocked from reaching the workers leader only inches from throwing a blow at Ndlovu who remained adamant that the workers were not signing the offer letters and not withdrawing the case from the High Court.

In previous incidents the Municipality has tried to settle workers wage bill by food handouts whose source was not immediately clarified. The council also tried to lieu the wages by clearing Municipal Rates and Services taxes on workers when it emerged that very few council employees owned houses in the town.

A council official at the council main offices confirmed to the media that indeed council was trying to settle wages the unserviced stands. The official would not be drawn to confirm if the Mayor indeed wanted to fight the workers leader.