BMW Group SA workers have pulled down tools on Monday morning demanding the company to stop suspending and dismissed workers over allegations of medical aid scheme fraud and corruption.
BMW workers protest outside the Rosslyn plant in Pretoria.
More than 700 workers have been suspended while others dismissed.
Workers vow they will protest until the company stop what they are doing and reinstate them back at work.
It is alleged some workers were involved in a medical aid scheme fraud and corruption with the doctors.
The workers started to strike on Monday morning shutting down the plant and threatening to strike until they get their jobs back.
Police allegedly fired rubber bullets at the angry BMW workers.
The injured workers vow to open a criminal case against the police for shooting at them without doing anything.
Some workers said they are receiving the telegrams, and some receiving the calls and were told to ignore them and throw them at the bin.
Addressing the workers outside the BMW Rosslyn Plant after the meeting with BMW management NUMSA regional secretary Jerry Morulane said from a meeting with the employer, and we been meeting the employer throughout two weeks back and the intention was to make or put some sense into the employers thinking.
“We have been struggling to push them to that end and in the previous meeting the employer has maintain positions that says they are not going to negotiate discipline, but we are saying to the employer discipline is a corrective way of addressing a problem.
So, whether that outcome becoming something that has been discussing it does not matter, at the end we would have achieve the objective unless if their goal is to dismissed workers,” said Morulane addressing the workers.
Morulane further explained to workers that if their goal is to dismiss the workers and they will compromise almost everybody in the BMW including BMW as a company.
“If we all love this company and wants this company to launch a new model, we definitely need to find a negotiated solution.
On Friday they meet the employer together with the general secretary and the aim was the same to say to the employer, what happened here and the employer confirming that our members were recruited by a runner who got a relationship with the doctor,” he said.
“If there is a runner which mean our members did not go to the doctor and suggested to the doctor that let’s do a xyz so they can be able to benefit but the runner came to a member and the runner said there is money there and because workers are struggling, workers has got problems, workers were lowered into that scheme by the doctors and this doctors are not just doctors, are doctors who came with Discovery,” Morulane continue to explain about the outcome of the meeting to the workers.
We further said to the employer they can’t discipline our members alone and must also discipline Discovery and it must go because has been with these problems for many years.
Morulane concluded they are in a point where they are still engaging with the employer and with the hope that they will knock some sense into their head and there will be a solution where everybody who is affected, we can’t agree to a dismissal of anyone.
“The position of the national union metal workers and those workers must allow national office burros to engage and create that space and we will come back when there is a need and in fact that coming back might be a coming back with a dispute,” Morulane concluded.
BMW Group South Africa has confirmed that workers are staging a protest outside the company’s Rosslyn plant.
In a statement, BMW Group SA said the protest is in response to an ongoing fraud investigation within the BMW Employees Medical Aid Scheme (BEMAS).
The BMW Group said they are cooperating with law enforcement in the investigation to ensure the rule of law is upheld.
“BMW Group SA can confirm a protest action today outside the Rosslyn plant in response to an ongoing fraud investigation within the BMW Employees Medical Aid Scheme (BEMAS).
BMW Group SA will not tolerate any acts of bribery, fraud or corruption by its employees.
All internal policies and procedures are being followed, and the necessary disciplinary action will be taken for any employee found in transgression of our Disciplinary Code.