Union negotiators boycotted talks to end South Africa’s nationwide public-sector strike on Monday after police used stun grenades to crack down on nurses demanding a living wage in Africa’s biggest economy.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said in a statement that police fired rubber bullets that injured striking nurses at a hospital in Durban, calling it a ”brutal” attack. It said 12 nurses were arrested.
But Durban police spokesperson Superintendent Vincent Mdunge told Reuters stun grenades were used that did not injure anyone. He confirmed 12 people were arrested.
Mdunge said the situation was under control after reports that buildings and hospitals were besieged by picketing public servants in KwaZulu-Natal, where Durban is located.
”The number of strikers are reduced and a lot have gone away,” he said.
Union leaders had planned to resume talks with the government but their negotiators staged a boycott, Cosatu said.
”Police threw stun grenades at them [nurses], some of them are injured, as we are talking some of them are on the casualty here,” S’thembele Tshete, a regional union leader, told the South African Broadcasting Corporation outside of Durban’s Addington hospital.
The strike, which began on Friday, has increased fears the mass action will cripple services. The economy is booming but civil servants complain they have not had a pay rise since one that ended a major public service strike in 2004.
Political consequences
President Thabo Mbeki’s government fears significant wage increases could further raise inflation. Aside from economic fears, the strike could have political consequences.
Cosatu is a key force in a political alliance with the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and it makes up 60% of civil servants, including police and teachers.
The mass action reflects Cosatu’s growing frustration over what it calls government policies that favour big business over the poor.
Fikile Slovo Majola, general secretary of the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union, said that government threats over the weekend to fire striking nurses would only undermine efforts to reach a resolution.
Union leaders have said they will not end the mass action until the government agrees to double its pay rise offer to 12%.
Anger boiled over after an official body recently recommended Mbeki receive a 57% pay rise, in a country where the vast majority of black people still live in grim townships. He says socio-economic conditions have improved. — Reuters