About 690 000 civil servants are expected to strike out of a total of 852 937 unionised members from the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu), the South African Democratic Teachers Union, the Public Servants Association, the South African State and Allied Workers Union, and the National Professional Teachers Organisation of South Africa.
Of the total number of civil servants 162 937 cannot strike because they are classified as essential service workers — the medical profession, correctional services and the South African Police Service. These include certain members of Nehawu, the South African Democratic Nurses Union, the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa, the South African Medical Association, and the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union.
A strike committee comprising one lower-ranking member from each trade union has been established to:
Send strike notices to the national and provincial governments;
Apply for municipal approval for the strike routes in the nine provinces;
Print banners, posters and T-shirts;
Hire buses;
Manage the budget;
Train marshals in crowd control for the day of the strike.
The strike committee guestimates that a one-day strike will cost each union R25 000 per province. At every provincial strike there will be one overarching banner at the helm with the logos of every trade union printed onto it. These will cost R2 500 each.
The government is on red alert for the strike. It has overridden traditional communication channels to civil servants, through unions, and is talking to them directly through leaflets and e-mails spelling out its offer, which includes a 1% performance-related increment. It has also bought space in weekend newspapers to advertise its offer. Next week it will begin training community members to invigilate matric exams in the absence of teachers.
Teacher interviews
Eddie Kekana (40), a history and English teacher at Ikusasa Secondary School in Thembisa, has been teaching for 15 years.
At the end of every month Kekana’s pay envelope has a measly R3 500 in it. He has a wife and two school-going children to support.
“I never come out, every month is a battle. Twice I have been admitted into hospital for stress that is directly related to my financial situation.”
Kekana is fuming. But his voice is resigned, a reflection of the dilemma most teachers are facing — their own livelihoods versus those of their learners.
“The economy of the country depends on the products the teachers are making — if we produce good students then the economy will benefit,” he says.
“Obviously we would prefer not to have to engage in industrial action because our learners will suffer, but it seems that the government just does not care,” Kekana says.
He pays R1 559 a month towards the bond on his R80 000 home, which he bought before the “new dispensation”. The R403 monthly housing allowance from the government is “just a drop in the ocean”, Kekana says.
“We are expected to adapt to the new … outcomes-based education, which involves hours of administration, but we get no compensation.”
Hlezi Tshabalala, an English and Zulu teacher at Umthambeka Primary School in Thembisa, spends R60 a day on transport, a huge chunk of her R3 500 pay package. She has been teaching for 12 years and remembers her last real pay increase in 1996.
“I am very much angry with the government because I earn peanuts,” she says. “I don’t own a home; I live in the squatter camp with my two children.”
Her classes have no less than 50 learners and “often some of them have to stand during lessons. How are we expected to produce learned students like this?” Tshabalala asks.
She says she is unmotivated and can understand how some civil servants turn to fraud, for example.
“The people are angrier than they were in 1999 because this time we are demanding increases in our housing contribution [which is currently R403] and in our medical aid contribution,” she says.
With a sparkle in her eye Tshabalala warns: “Watch out for me on the streets, I’ll be shouting the loudest.”