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Trade union Solidarity today lodged an urgent application for an interdict at the Labour Court in Johannesburg. The purpose of the urgent application is to protect the trade union’s members at the engineering firm Actom against an unlawful lockout. Actom’s employees have been denied access to the workplace since 1 July 2014 and are being denied their salaries.
 
According to Anton van der Bijl, head of Solidarity’s Labour Court Division, the trade union’s urgent application will be heard in the Labour Court on Thursday, 24 July 2014. He says the trade union will argue that the stated employer’s lockout action is unprotected and illegal.
 
“In terms of the Labour Relations Act the employer cannot simply suspend his employees’ service contracts without both parties agreeing to it. We will therefore argue that the employer is not acting in accordance with the stated Act,” says Van der Bijl.
 
Van der Bijl further indicates that several of Solidarity’s members have been without an income for many weeks. “Many of our members don’t have food in the house and cannot meet their financial obligations like paying their children’s school fees. One of our members can no longer supply his disabled child’s specialised needs,” says Van der Bijl.
 
Van der Bijl says Solidarity will request the court to declare the lockout illegal; to rule that its members should be given access to the workplace; to rule that its members must be reimbursed any funds lost as a result of the lockout; and to rule that members must be given back the mandatory leave they were forced to take.
 
Various members of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) have been on strike since the beginning of July due to a wage dispute with employers in the Metal and Engineering Industries Bargaining Council.