Teachers taking part in the planned public-service strike will lose a combined income of R70-million a day, the director general of Education Department, Duncan Hindle, said on Tuesday.
He said he hoped strike action can be averted but said the department will enforce the no-work, no-pay principle on teachers who decide to strike.
”Principals will monitor the situation at schools regarding the attendance and non-attendance of teachers and report on that,” he said.
Hindle was speaking at a briefing on work by the government’s social cluster of departments, which include his own, the health, social services and housing departments.
He said the department’s immediate concern is the physical safety of pupils and that it is also the responsibility of principals to ensure children are kept safe.
”A particular risk we face is at special-needs schools where we have children that need 24 hour attention. We have convinced the workers at those special schools to [keep on working],” he said.
The director general for health, Thamsanqa Dennis Mseleku, said the department is ”fully prepared” to face the challenges of strike action.
He said the department wants to hold talks with unions representing health workers to discuss the threat of strike action, which will be illegal for health workers since it is an essential service.
”We must ensure that we look after the interests of patients, especially in the emergency sections,” he said.
”We want to urge health professionals and health workers to adhere to their code of conduct and to their commitments to put the patients first, whatever the situation is,” he added.
Public-sector unions have rejected the government’s 6% wage increase offer and stood by their 12% demand.
Unions are now planning strike action to force government to yield to their demands.
They said strike action will include workers from essential services such as health and police, even though the law bars them from striking. — Sapa