The national public-service strike was largely peaceful on Friday, but got off to a violent start in Cape Town, police said.
Police used stun grenades to disperse protesters outside Tygerberg Hospital after about 500 people had blocked both the entrance and the road outside the facility, said Inspector Bernadine Steyn.
Shortly after 8.30am police threw four stun grenades to disperse them. No one was injured.
Gauteng police spokesperson Lungelo Dlamini said no incidents of violence or unrest had been reported in the province.
Hundreds of public servants descended on the Johannesburg city centre for a march to begin at about lunch time.
”We don’t foresee any problems,” said Dlamini.
Johannesburg metro police spokesperson Edna Mamonyane said aside from the crowds making their way to De Korte Street, traffic outside the city centre flowed as normal.
In the North West, Captain Emmanuel Reetsang said striking workers were toyi-toying and singing peacefully, and he expected the situation to remain quiet throughout the day.
Eastern Cape police spokesperson Captain Thembi Kinana said the morning was quiet and peaceful.
”It’s still quiet now. I can’t say what is going to happen,” he said.
Limpopo’s Superintendent Ronel Otto said people were marching in Polokwane. ”We don’t foresee any problems. Nothing has been reported yet,” she said.
Police in KwaZulu-Natal also reported that the strike had been peaceful thus far.
Meanwhile, police were also participating in the strike through ”work-to-rule” action.
Members of the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) only carried out the job description they were hired to do, and no more, said Popcru spokesperson Pat Ntsobi.
The police and prisons sectors are defined as essential services so their employees are legally prohibited from striking.
‘It hurts a lot’
When Poppy Mokgosi called an ambulance to take her diabetic husband to the Chris Hani-Baragwanath Hospital on Friday, the last thing she expected was having to push her 73-year-old husband to his hospital ward herself.
Mokgosi (49) was seen struggling to push her big-boned husband on a trolley to a ward about 700m from the casualty area.
No porters were on site to carry out their duties as they had joined the public-sector strike for higher pay.
The visibly annoyed Mokgosi said Friday’s situation was unfair for families of sick people at the hospital.
”It hurts a lot … to be made to push my own husband to a hospital bed when there should be people doing their job,” she said.
”He is a very heavy man and these corridors are uneven making it difficult to push him.”
All the while Mokgosi’s elderly husband, who also suffers from a kidney problem, was moaning and groaning in pain.
”Please untie me from this thing [trolley]. I can’t breathe,” said Mokgosi’s husband, Hlengani Tshabalala.
The nurse manning the ward paced up and down the corridors trying hard to fill the gap left by her protesting colleagues.
Disciplined
Meanwhile, the Public Service and Administration Ministry on Friday said that essential-service workers are liable to be disciplined if they join the nationwide strike.
Spokesperson Lewis Rabkin said there was no ”minimum service” agreement with essential service workers.
”There have been a number of media reports that essential-service workers will be working to a ‘minimum service agreement’.
”We wish, once again, to put it on record that there is no such agreement in place,” he said.
Rabkin said that under the Labour Relations Act no essential service employee may embark on any industrial action.
A labour court interdict obtained by government on Thursday also prevented essential workers from striking.
Essential workers include doctors, nurses, immigration officers and police.
Embarrassing image
The public-service strike has created an embarrassing image for South Africa, the Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA) said on Friday.
CEO Mmatati Marobe said that there was intense work that needed to be done for the 2010 Soccer World Cup and the country’s workers ”cannot afford to waste precious time”.
”While we do not condone the mass action taken by civil servants, we do understand their grievances, and their choice to take this sort of action.”
She said, however, the strike could have been avoided through continuous engagement and discussions by the parties involved well ahead of time. — Sapa