The City of Johannesburg Call Centre (Joburg Connect) will be operated by skeleton staff for the next three days due to a municipal workers' strike which started this morning.
While city spokesmen maintain contingency plans are in place, they accede the strike will affect operations, with only the bare minimum of staff on duty to man the telephone lines.
"We will only have a clearer picture of how it has affected us towards the end of the day," said Nthatise Modingoane, City of Johannesburg spokesman, this morning.
The Joburg Connect call centre - (011) 375-5555 - operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. It is aimed at being a "one-stop-shop" for all city queries, be it about taxes, water bills, or potholes. The call centre is based in Roodepoort, with sub-call centres for CityPower, PikitUp and Joburg Water.
Stan Maphologela, another City of Johannesburg spokesman, says the roughly 80 operators at Joburg Connect handle between 80 000 and 90 000 calls a month - averaging out at between 2 500 and 3 700 calls a day.
"The Joburg Connect call centre is, however, operating at more than 50% capacity at the moment," said Maphologela at 10.30am today. "We are coping with the calls. From our experience with previous strikes, we find that the call centres normally manage."
Three-day strike
Thousands of South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) members, in the economic hub of SA, are embarking on a three-day industrial action. This follows the labour court ruling that an estimated 10 000 Samwu workers, including those in the emergency services, could go on strike. This is despite the city having sought to prevent this through a court interdict.
Among the union's demands are that performance-based contracts be scrapped, all employees be converted to permanent contracts, the city reinstates free transport to work, and that workers doing the same job should be paid equally. The union also wants the city to desist from using labour brokers and casual labour.
According to Modingoane, only "core administrative" council staff will be on strike, and not those at secondary call centres.
"For this, a secondary strike would have to be launched, which is not yet the case," he notes.
Gauteng Shared Services Call Centre media liaison officer Emmanuel Mdawu does not expect the Johannesburg strike to affect its operations, even though its call centre is located in the city, as it is run by staff at a provincial government level.
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