Behind this week’s strike by Natal hospital staffers lies a growing gulf between workers and their union, reports Farouk Chothia
STRIKING hospital employees at Durban’s King Edward VIII Hospital were warned this week that they risked losing their union membership if they defied calls to return to work.
National Education Health and Allied Workers’ Union regional secretary, Obed Zuma, said that if the crippling strike continued, it would be “difficult for us to regard them (the strikers) as our members.
“No union should say that the right to strike should be taken away but that right should be used correctly. At this stage, we feel that it’s being abused,” said Zuma.
But the chairman of the Workers’ Forum that is steering the strike, S’bu Mtshali, suggested that strikers’ loyalty to Nehawu was not absolute. “We still see them as our representatives but we are going to see how things develop,” he said.
The gulf between the two men’s positions is possibly the biggest to develop between a Cosatu affiliate and its membership since the April election and reflects workers’ disgruntlement with what they see as Cosatu’s softly- softly position on strike action in favour of giving the government time to settle into office amid delicate negotiations with big business on broader issues.
For Mtshali, the issues are clear: “The ANC is in government. Nehawu is the child of Cosatu and Cosatu is in an alliance with the ANC … Just because we got an ANC government, Nehawu is siding with employers. It is very wrong to do that.”
Zuma denied the charge that Nehawu had ditched workers.
A meeting between strikers’ representatives and the Nehawu leadership was scheduled for Thursday to hammer out differences. King Edward staffers also indicated they were at loggerheads with the ANC.
King Edward is operating on a skeleton staff after being hit last week by the latest in a series of strikes. Four other hospitals in the region have also been affected.
Patients, including babies in incubators, were transferred to other hospitals. While exhausted doctors worked around the clock, nurses spent time toyi-toyiing or knitting.
Initially, kwaZulu/Natal Minister of Health, the ANC’s Zweli Mkhize, tried to resolve the issue through negotiations. But when strikers refused to return to work his attitude hardened.
Arguing that he faced a “moral catastrophe”, Mkhize brought an urgent court interdict early this week to force the strikers to resume work. On their refusal, Mkhize accused “anarchists” of seizing control of the strike, while Nehawu’s Zuma charged that “certain elements”, whose background still needed to be fully “investigated”, were “within” the ranks of strikers.
Mtshali said the strike followed the failure of authorities to address grievances. Workers called off a strike at the hospital just before the election, accepting Nehawu’s assurances that the Transitional Executive Council was looking into their grievances. When nothing happened, workers resumed their action. Grievances include:
* Low wages and workers have not been paid a five percent wage increase promised to all civil servants last year;
* Racism. No African has yet been appointed to a senior management post. Mtshali said management had taken “merit awards” worth R10 000 to R20 000, even though there was much “corruption”. “There are people who take medicines in bulk from the hospital to their private businesses. Some of them have pharmacies.”
Mkhize assured strikers that a commission of inquiry would investigate. This prompted Nehawu’s call for an end to the strike. It said emphasis should be placed on resolving grievances through negotiations.
While a small group of strikers heeded Nehawu’s call and resumed work on Tuesday, the majority decided at a mass meeting on Wednesday afternoon to continue.