They may be united in their demand for better pay, but when it comes to the national anthem, public-service unions are not necessarily all singing from the same song sheet.
This emerged on Monday at a mass report-back meeting in Cape Town called by unions participating in the public-sector strike.
The thousands of union members who filled the Good Hope Centre stood respectfully while singing the Xhosa and Sesotho verses of Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrica, but then abruptly stopped with cries of ”Amandla”.
Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) Western Cape chairperson Munroe Mkhalipi was trying to get the meeting under way when he was interrupted with a note of protest received by vice-chairperson Jan Kotze.
He announced that the matter would be sorted out at the end of the meeting.
Mkhalipi told the South African Press Association afterwards that non-Cosatu unions, including the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa and the Public Servants’ Association (PSA), had complained that the Afrikaans and English verses of the anthem were not sung.
”It was a concern and I indicated we had discussed the matter in a way [that] should not be seen as hav[ing] divided us,” he said.
”We have corrected that situation and workers after that have accepted our explanation, and we are united again as the public sector.”
PSA Western Cape manager Koos Kruger confirmed that his union was one of those which protested.
”We feel that we were a united front and that everybody should be respected, especially as our national anthem is there for all,” he said.
”Unfortunately today [Monday], maybe due to over-anxiety, it didn’t get completed to the extent it should have been. We are very sorry about it.
”We don’t want a difference like that to undermine our unity, but it’s definitely something we will address in our [inter-union] joint management committee.”
Later in the meeting, all the strikers were given a report back by a Cosatu delegate to the African National Congress (ANC) Western Cape policy conference, held on the weekend, who urged them to debate the issues raised there in their own ANC branches. — Sapa