A group of 700 workers who were fired by the Passenger Rail of South Africa (Prasa) following a protected strike five years ago were on Monday verifying their bank details before going back to work.
This comes after the Constitutional Court dismissed an appeal by Prasa which had sought to appeal against a Labour Appeal Court judgment last year ordering the reinstatement of the workers. Prasa had appealed to the Con Court claiming it cannot back-pay the workers from 1 February 2013 as ordered.
The workers‚ belonging to the National Transport Movement (NTM)‚ were dismissed after Prasa accused them of burning trains worth about R42 million during the strike.
Nkosinathi Sithole, who speaks on behalf of the dismissed workers, said that the rail agency was verifying all the workers' information and making sure that everything is updated. Sithole said that Prasa employees were expected to go back to work between March and April.
"Prasa said that at the end of March everything should be sorted and workers should be back at work,"
The rail agency had sent workers notices asking them to make representations why they should not be fired for a number of incidents at stations and at depots during January 2013. Prasa said that it was not satisfied with the explanations provided by the NTM and dismissed the employees.
- African News Agency (ANA)
