The Department of Licensing and Card Account is closed due to an ongoing strike by its employees.
No more driving licences for anyone in the country until employees at the Department of Licensing and Card Account (DLCA) are given permanent positions.
Standing outside their offices at Erasmuskloof earlier today, members said no one would get their licences until they get permanent positions with all benefits.
The DLCA production team are responsible for the manufacturing, capturing and issuing of licences to all driving departments all over the country.
They said motorists, bikers and pilots had not been receiving licences for the past three weeks because they had already downed tools.
And coming as a united front, the team asked not to be named individually but as a collective: “The driving licence cards of South Africa are at a standstill, this is the third week, there is no one to run the production machine and no one is getting their licence, there are over 40 000 cards already causing a backlog,” one of the employees said.
They said they had been working there for the past 20 years, but recently the company was taken over by the Department of Transport. “We have been working here since 1998, and we were promised permanent positions.
"Three years down the line we are still not permanent, we have been on contract for the past three years,” one of them said.
They were told they had been transferred to the Department of Transport by Act 197, but were still contract workers and feel their rights have been violated.
The Labour Act 197, on transfer of contract of employment states that if a transfer of a business takes place, unless stated otherwise, the new employer is automatically substituted in the place of the old employer in respect of all contracts of employment in existence immediately before the date of transfer.
Anything done before the transfer by or in relation to the old employer, including the dismissal of an employee is considered to have been done in relation to the new employer; and the transfer does not interrupt an employee’s continuity of employment. “Employees’ contract of employment continues with the new employer as if with the old employer” it stated.
Employees said they told their managers that they could not accept all the conditions of the new contract but were not interested in negotiating with them, they said its either they resign or leave.
Having exhausted other channels to resolve the matter they called on the Transport Minister to step in and resolve the issues and if not, those in need of licences will remain stranded.
