PAY DISPUTE: 70 employees protested at Kraaifontein Home for the Aged in Scottsville. Picture: Solly Lottering
Workers at an old age home in Kraaifontein say they’ve been locked out of the facility for the third day in a row over a pay dispute.
The 70 workers decided to protest peacefully after management of the Kraaifontein Home for the Aged in Scottsville failed to pay their salaries last week.
They say manager Ernest Smith keeps promising the money will appear in their bank accounts, but up until last night they had received niks.
A 40-year-old man said: “I must stay anonymous otherwise I will be targeted for speaking to the media. We were supposed to get paid on the 25th of September.
“When we asked about our money, we were told that the financial manager did not come to work, and that there weren’t funds for our pay.
“Our debit orders went off, but we didn’t get paid. This is the first time in 26 years that such a thing happened to us.
“Then we were promised the money would be paid on Monday past, but we didn’t receive anything up till now.
“Some people could not even come to work because they don’t have money. The furthest one lives in Wellington.”
However, Smith tells the Daily Voice that his hands were tied.
“The problem is our subsidies that have been brutally cut,” he said.
“We have spoken to the Department [of Social Development] and they promised us on Tuesday that the salaries would be sorted out.
“The department isn’t to blame for this. We have been struggling to secure a financial manager.”
But, on thursday, workers arrived to find the gates to the facility locked and no monies paid into their accounts.
“People don’t have food, we are struggling to survive,” one disappointed worker said.
dailyvoice@inl.co.za