The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) in Mpumalanga has threatened to cripple the province’s education department if its wide-ranging demands, including the dismissal of the department’s head, are not met by next week.
But Sadtu denied reports that, with matric finals about two weeks away, it would call a strike. Sadtu has 25 000 members in the province’s four education districts, comprising more than a million learners in about 2 000 schools.
The Mail & Guardian has obtained a copy of the four-page memorandum the union handed to Mpumalanga education minister Reginah Mhaule last week. The memo gives Mhaule until the end of next week to remove Mahlasedi Mhlabane, the head of the province’s education department.
Sadtu accuses Mhlabane of failing to “cure the department of its ailments” and of straining labour relations. The memorandum demands that Mhaule refund a day’s salary wrongly deducted from teachers after the last year’s strike and give them salary slips for February and March this year, which were withheld without reason.
Its demands also include:
- that the province fill all vacant positions, especially key positions in the head office and districts;
- an end to the outsourcing of services; and
- the conversion of all temporary teaching posts into permanent contracts.
The union says the department has not filled any vacancies in its head office and four district offices since August 2008. In the Nelspruit head office alone, more than a third of the 861 posts are still vacant, according to departmental documents the M&G has seen, dated June 30 this year.
The vacancies include one chief director position, four director positions, 12 deputy directors, 11 accountants and six human resources practitioners.
“The moratorium has resulted in many in acting positions and people occupying two positions,” said Sadtu provincial secretary Walter Hlaise.
But, he said, “a strike is out of the question. We’ll not desert learners as we’ve made a commitment to ensure a peaceful exam period.”
If its demands were not met by next week, the union would “disengage” from forums convened by the department, Hlaise said. These were the provincial bargaining chamber, several developmental committees and the provincial co-ordinating committee for school sport.
Sadtu’s absence from the bargaining chamber would stall the department’s plans for next year, said Hlaise. “Without an agreement with the union it can’t pass a budget. We won’t meet them, we won’t talk to them. That will compel the department to respond to our demands.”
This would not be the first time this year Sadtu-aligned teachers have withdrawn from the education department’s programmes. In April, the union boycotted the education indaba organised by the department in Secunda. In July, its members snubbed workshops organised by the department for training on the new curriculum and assessment policy.
Sadtu was running its own training programme, Hlaise told the M&G.
Mpumalanga education department spokesperson Jasper Zwane declined to comment in detail on Sadtu’s demands and accusations. The department would “engage” union leaders in a bid to “find a collective resolution on all issues raised”, he said.
Mhlabane did not respond to questions sent to her and the minister.