Municipal workers in Louis Trichardt went on strike on Thursday, May 8, which left the town looking like a rubbish dump, with black garbage bags and related items lying on sidewalks all over and services at Council’s offices coming to an almost complete standstill. The normal service was only resumed on Friday.

The strike was a coordinated effort by around 5 000 employees from the Mopani, Vhembe, Capricorn and Waterberg district municipalities. This strike was the prelude to a province-wide strike on May 16, where SAMWU members will march on the office of the MEC for local government and the provincial offices of the employer organization, the South African Local Government Association. The provincial strike itself will be the build-up to a national strike by SAMWU, to be held at the end of the month.

The union demands an end to all forms of privatization, outsourcing and labour brokers, since these benefit only a few of the rich and corrupt contractors, while impoverishing workers who earn small salaries. It also wants employers to take urgent action to prevent increasing numbers of deaths and accidents in workplaces, mostly caused by employers’ failure to adhere to the required health and safety legislation. The union does not want health services to be transferred from local governments to provinces, as this causes communities to suffer because provincial health departments are regarded as incompetent. The last objection raised by the union concerns what it calls "fruitless expenditure on private and costly lawyers by municipalities. These lawyers are getting millions of rands to do cases such as disciplinary hearings that can easily be handled by municipalities’ HR departments."