01/09/2026
🔊NUMSA PRESS STATEMENT | NUMSA Victory for Putco Workers as the Company Permanently Employs 343 Workers
Following a successful intervention by the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) at the South African Road Passenger Bargaining Council (SARPBAC), the Public Utility Transport Corporation (Putco) has agreed to convert 343 contract workers into permanent employees. Significantly, this dismantles a business model that treats the working-class as objects to be exploited rather than human beings. NUMSA welcomes this concrete victory against the deliberate use of casualisation of the workforce in the public transport sector.
For years, Putco has exploited South Africa’s crisis of mass unemployment (now sitting at over 33.6% according to Statistics South Africa) by using temporary, fixed-term contracts as a revolving door for access to cheap labour. This has kept over 400 workers trapped on temporary contracts for years, some for more than three years.
Putco intentionally exploited the vast pool of unemployed workers to undermine job security, lower wages, and prevent workers from organising effectively in their sector. This tactic mirrors Apartheid-era labour practices, which relied on a controlled, disposable, and cheap labour supply from African townships to maximise private profits of companies in city centres, trapping the working class in permanent poverty and miserable exploitation.
NUMSA as a militant red union cannot allow employers to continue to weaponise high unemployment rates to force workers into accepting precarious work conditions, out of sheer survival. Under Section 198B of the Labour Relations Act (LRA), engaging workers on fixed-term contracts for longer than three months without a legitimate operational reason is illegal. Yet employers have the audacity to routinely bypass the law until trade unions such as NUMSA intervene.
While the dispute remains ongoing and active before SARPBAC, NUMSA’s intervention has yielded immediate results:
1. Putco has agreed to transfer 343 workers—including Driver Conductors, Auto Electrical Operatives, Bus Cleaners, Shunter Drivers, Tyre Attendants, and Workshop Staff—from precarious contracts to permanent employment.
2. The permanent appointments directly impact workers across Putco's core operations, including depots and facilities in Soweto, Soshanguve, Roseville, and the Tshwane Auto Manufacturing (TAM) hub.
3. NUMSA’s case at SARPBAC will proceed without compromise to compel Putco to grant full permanent status to the remaining 77 affected employees.
This falls part of NUMSA's long-standing, historic battle against casualisation across all industrial sectors—From securing the landmark 2018 Constitutional Court ruling in Assign Services—which outlawed the dual-employer loophole used by labour brokers to keep workers indefinitely temporary—to repeatedly forcing major manufacturing, automotive, and transport employers to absorb agency staff into permanent roles. NUMSA continues to lead the charge against precarious employment. The concession won at Putco reinforces our unyielding commitment to enforcing statutory protections under the LRA whenever they are evaded.
This victory proves that precarity is not an inevitable or a natural economic law for workers and the working-class. It is a deliberate strategy designed to squeeze value out of the working class. Employers rely on a divided, precarious workforce to keep labour costs low. Organised labour—through the trade union—exists to break that cycle! We remain steadfast in taking the SARPBAC proceedings to their final conclusion until every affected worker at Putco secures full permanent employment and complete job security.
Aluta Continua!
Issued by:
Irvin Jim
NUMSA General Secretary
073 157 6384
For more information, please contact:
Mbali Ngwenda
NUMSA Media & Communications
[email protected]
078 458 0617
For more information:
NUMSA Head Office: 011 689 1700
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NumsaSocial
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Numsa_Media
Website: https://numsa.org.za/
![[📸IN PICS] NUMSA Mpumalanga Region is currently rolling out a 3 day Education & Training Programme focusing on Shop Stew...](https://img4.ngos1.com/643/117/1911950236431177.jpg)
