OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Friday 2.50pm
PUBLIC service union leaders are claiming on Friday afternoon that the call for members to strike has resulted in a near “black-out” in some schools in the country as teachers stay away from class.
South African Democratic Teachers’ Union secretary-general Tulas Nxesi said schools in several provinces failed to open as teachers stayed away en masse. National Health and Allied Workers’ Union president Vusi Nhlapo said the strike “is proceeding very well,” with spokesman David Makhuru adding that “by this morning there were more people on strike than yesterday.”
There is, however, still no indication whether the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) will join the strike.
8.30am:
SOME 300000 public servants — mainly teachers and health workers — are set to move into the second day of a two-day national strike on Friday after pay talks with the government broke down earlier in the week.
Unions warned that more workers are expected to join the strike on Friday in support of a 10% wage increase.
The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) threatened to extend its strike — which involves up to 200000 teachers and has shut down schools — until Tuesday unless government met the is demand.
Government has refused to pay more than a 6,15% increase. The strike, called by Sadtu, the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) and the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru), could become the biggest the country has seen since the advent of black majority rule in 1994.
By late afternoon on Thursday Nehawu spokesman Makoko Lekola said some 300000 workers had gone on strike — forfeiting a day’s wages in the process.
But the impact of the stay-away on the public service belied that figure. Hospitals functioned fairly normally, while Popcru members failed to go on strike at all, following warnings from management that it is illegal for policemen to strike.
A spokesman for the union said its leadership was locked in a meeting late on Thursday to decide whether its members will join the strike on Friday. Sadtu and Nehawu predicted that more of their members will strike on Friday, while numerous smaller public service unions threatened to join the the labour action and drag it out indefinitely.
The education sector appeared worst-hit by the strike. Schools in most of eastern KwaZulu-Natal province closed on Thursday, but in the Eastern Cape Sadtu said the strike by some 53000 of its members had been postponed until Friday.
Sadtu secretary-general Tulas Nxesi estimated that more than 80% of his 240000 members had gone on strike, adding: “There will definitely be more [on Friday], we will be out in force.”
In the health sector, hospitals in Gauteng province, including Africa’s biggest hospital, Chris Hani Baragwanath in Johannesburg, were battling a shortage of clean linen as laundry workers joined the stoppage. The 900-bed Johannesburg General hospital also had difficulty feeding patients as 50 to 80 percent of catering staff had not reported for work, health ministry spokesman Popo Maja said. — AFP