The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) expects about 20 000 public servants to take part in Friday’s march through central Cape Town, the first called by the federation in the city since last year’s security sector protest.
That event was marred by looting, violence and damage to public and private property before it was broken up by police, and seven people are still facing criminal charges as a result.
But the federation on Thursday gave an assurance that though it would be ”a big one”, Friday’s march, to press public-service wage demands, would be ”as disciplined as possible”, and members of the public would be safe.
March convenor Mike Louw, who is also Cosatu’s provincial organiser, told the South African Press Association (Sapa) that for the expected 20 000 people, legislation governing public gatherings ”suggested” there should be 2 000 marshals.
He said each of the five or six unions participating had promised 300 marshals.
Asked about the shortfall, he replied: ”That’s no problem. Don’t worry about that.”
He would meet the marshals early on Friday morning — the march starts from District Six at 11am — to brief them on what was expected of them.
”This is all in accordance with the fact that we want our members to be protected, but as with all of our marches, there is a sense of discipline, and we obviously appeal to our members to be as disciplined as possible.”
He said the police had asked for a special meeting about the march, which organisers had agreed to, and there had been a ”frank discussion”.
”We spoke about the fact that they have a dual role to protect our members and deal with criminal activity,” Louw said.
”We gave them the assurance that we are going to work closely to ensure that this march is a peaceful demonstration of public-sector unions against the offer that government has made on wages.”
Louw confirmed that Friday would be the first Cosatu march through the city centre since the security strike.
”So this one is a big one. We’re going to make up for all of the times we haven’t marched.”
Earlier, Cosatu Western Cape secretary Tony Ehrenreich told a media briefing that the violence at the security march, which took place in March last year, had been ”an aberration” and ”really unusual”.
He repeated claims that security company bosses had unleashed agents provocateur among the marchers, but added that he did not expect the government to do the same on Friday.
Nonetheless, Cosatu would be ”a lot more cautious this time around”, he said.
”We don’t expect problems in this march or any other march of Cosatu in future,” he said. ”We don’t think we’ll have any problems. People will be safe.”
At the same briefing, South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) spokesperson Jonavon Rustin said his union’s members in the province were ready to strike in ”overwhelming numbers”.
Sadtu had balloted about 11 000 members in the province, and 10 600 had voted for strike action. There was no question on the ballot on how long the strike should last, he said, but the action would be indefinite.
Teachers would leave schools in the Cape Peninsula at 10am on Friday to take part in the march, and those in outlying areas earlier.
School governing bodies had been briefed on the situation, and parents were expected to join pupils supporting their teachers on the march.
Rustin also said government had been trying to set up bilateral meetings with individual unions in a bid to divide them.
However, the unions had indicated theirs was a joint demand. If the government wanted to call a meeting, it had to give notice through the public-service bargaining council.
Western Cape chief executive of the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa), Helene Sieborger, told Sapa that in a ballot conducted by her union, 87% of those who voted in the Western Cape were ready to strike.
Nationally, 67% of those who took part voted for a strike of two to four days, or indefinitely.
She said Naptosa, which has given notice of an indefinite strike, had never before called a strike of more than one day. — Sapa