The jury was out on the effectiveness of Thursday’s public-service strike in the Western Cape as unions claimed a massive turnout while the provincial government sought to downplay its impact.
In Cape Town, police estimated about 17 000 strikers snaked their way through the city, with the main body stretching at times over several city blocks.
The strikers, who handed over a memorandum, were kept away from the tall iron gates of Parliament by a line of barrier tape, backed by a double row of police with plastic riot shields and more police inside the gates.
According to Congress of South African Trade Unions regional secretary Tony Ehrenreich, Thursday’s march was an “incredible” success.
“There was easily 30 000 people, up by 10 000 on the last march earlier in September,” he said.
Ehrenreich said it is clear that labour is building momentum as people become increasingly unhappy with the government’s attitude and its offers on salary and related matters, which culminated in Thursday’s nationwide strike and elicited threats of rolling mass action next week.
South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) secretary in the Western Cape, Don Pasquallie, said his information from a source in the provincial government was that 12 000 teachers — just less than half the total in the province — went on strike, plus a little more than 1 000 civil servants.
“My own very reserved assessment of the strike was that it was hugely successful in the Western Cape,” he said.
He had no idea how many schools in the province had opened.
“But I can tell you, if you had 12 000 of 25 000 educators on strike, then schools could not have been operational,” he said.
According to Western Cape director general Gilbert Lawrence, the stayaway has not yet been “fully quantified”.
“But from reports most of those that stayed away were in the education sector, followed by health,” he said.
Lawrence said there were no reports of disruptions across the entire public-service spectrum.
“We are very concerned [about the situation] and that it will be resolved as soon as possible,” he said.
According to the spokesperson for acting Western Cape Premier Leonard Ramatlakane, although schools in the province were seriously affected by the strike, the provincial administration itself was not.
“I’m sure from the side of the unions they will say it had an impact [but] work has been going on in government departments. They were not disrupted by the strike,” said Makhaya Mani.
He acknowledged that schools had been “hard hit”.
“Some of the schools were deserted, no teachers, but the department of education made contingency plans. It was not a train smash. That’s what we can say.”
Though some South African Police Union posters were carried in the march on Parliament, Mani said he did not have any reports that police officers, who are classed as emergency services, took part in the strike.
“[There were] no reports of absenteeism in our 158 police stations in the Western Cape,” he said. “We will be told later if there were those that took leave.”
The Western Cape secretary of the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru), Mncedisi Mbolekwa, said prisons and police personnel in the province joined the day-long strike “in numbers”.
“If the minister cannot listen this time, we are building up for a major three-day strike now,” he said.
Mbolekwa did not know whether the day-to-day running of prisons had been disrupted, but hailed the fact that all three unions operating in prisons — Popcru, the Public Servants’ Association and the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa — had backed the strike.
“They came out for the first time in our history, all the unions which used not to see eye-to-eye were united behind one banner, saying enough is enough.”
Asked whether he expected any disciplinary action against police or prisons staff for breaching the emergency services provision, he said it was only the employer that was saying they could not strike.
“The Constitution of this country allows all employees to march peacefully, demonstrate unarmed and hand over a petition,” he said. “We formally informed the department of public service and administration on September 7 in line with the Labour Relations Act, so this was a legal action.”
In some hospitals in the Western Cape everybody was present.
Protesters refuse to hand over memorandum
Protesters in Nelspruit, Mpumalanga, refused to hand over their memorandum of demands to a provincial representative, insisting instead on giving it to Premier Thabang Makwetla.
At the last minute, union leaders decided they wanted to hand the memorandum to Makwetla, who was out of the province for the day.
The memorandum was eventually received by Mpumalanga minister for health William Lubisi, on behalf of the premier.
However, National Education and Health Allied Workers’ Union spokesperson Rob Vilikazi said the union will repeat the entire strike in two weeks’ time and hand the memorandum to Makwetla then.
By Thursday afternoon, Vilikazi said his marshals were leading the people back to the Nelspruit showgrounds, where transport was waiting to take them home.
Except for the traffic problems the march went off without incident.
Thousands march in Bloemfontein
Thousands of public servants marched to the main provincial building in Bloemfontein to hand over a memorandum on Thursday.
In one of the bigger protest marches the city has seen in recent years, protesters moved slowly through the streets singing and chanting, drawing much attention from motorists and onlookers, some of whom showed support by hooting and shouting encouragement.
Protesters as far as QwaQwa, Welkom, Kroonstad, Ficksburg and Zastron were bused in to take part in the protest.
Union representatives at first had to calm down protesters before a memorandum could be handed over to the provincial minister for health, Sakhiwe Belot.
The protesters were unhappy because Premier Beatrice Marshoff was unavailable to receive the memorandum in person.
Shareen Pardesi of Sadtu told protesters in front of the Lebohang Building that the protest is against poverty and not against the government.
“It’s against the policies of government that create poverty,” Pardesi said.
She added that the dispute is not just for teachers but also for all government employees, including those who did not take part in the industrial action.
The general secretary of the South African Democratic Nurses’ Union, Freddie Mohai, read the memorandum before it was handed over to Belot.
Departmental officials in the Free State were reluctant to say what the effect of the national strike action was on Thursday. Most said that reports would be forwarded to them on Friday.
Police said no serious incidents were reported except for minor traffic disruptions in the city as the march stretched over about a kilometre.