SARAH BULLEN and AFP, Cape Town | Tuesday 10.00pm
PUBLIC Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi told thousands of public servants who marched on Parliament on Tuesday afternoon that government will meet them in the bargaining chamber “within days”.
“We have received the memorandum, we will engage it, and we will see you back in the chamber within days,” she said after herself, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, Health Minister Mantombazana Tshabalala-Msimang and Minister in the President’s Office Essop Pahad, scrambled aboard a trailer outside the gates of Parliament to accept a memorandum from the protesters.
Fraser-Moleketi’s brush-off comes as tens of thousands of public sector workers went on strike and staged nationwide protest marches in an unprecedented showdown between organised labour and the post-apartheid government.
Union leaders, who warned that the showdown with government is just beginning, estimate that up to 570000 workers took part in protest marches in the country’s major centres supporting demands for higher wages.
The authorities said schooling was halted in many areas while hospitals had to do without cleaning staff and in many cases suffered a shortage of nurses. Essential services were maintained in hospitals, courts, the police service and prisons, however.
While most of the marches took on a carnival atmosphere, in Johannesburg police fired rubber bullets and stun grenades after some 3500 students protesting in support of a speedy resolution to the impasse went on the rampage and damaged businesses and cars.
Cosas gave teacher unions and the government five days in which to resolve their dispute or face further action by the student body. Marches, protests and meetings also took place in Cape Town, Bloemfontein, Nelspruit, Pietersburg, Mafikeng, Durban and Bisho.
The strike was called by 12 unions representing the 1,1-million-strong public sector, most of them allied in Cosatu after the government broke off negotiations and unilaterally imposed a 6,3% wage increase.
The unions, joining ranks for the first time ever, are demanding a 7,3% rise, in line with inflation, plus an extra percentage point for teachers. The main march, in Pretoria, drew between 30000 and 40000 teachers, nurses and off-duty police officers — the biggest protest since the new democratic government was voted into power in 1994 — according to police crowd estimates.