The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) will not join Wednesday’s general strike because employers need to be given 10 days’ advance notice.
The union’s 280 000 members would instead hold demonstrations and pickets when not on duty in support of public servants’ wage demands, said the union’s general secretary Frans Baleni.
”We’re also struggling to get some of the addresses for contractors so we can issue notice,” said Baleni.
Baleni said earlier that the NUM, with over 280 000 members in the mining, construction and energy sectors, fully supported the public-service unions’ demand for a 12% pay hike.
Meanwhile, the Labour Court in Johannesburg will on Tuesday hear an urgent application by the South African Local Government Association (Salga) to stop municipal workers joining the action.
Salga maintains that it has ”no dispute” with the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) or any other union, and its workers are therefore not entitled to strike. Samwu expected 60% of its 120 000 members to participate in the public-service action.
Teachers intimidated
Teachers at a high school at Middelburg in Mpumalanga were intimidated by strikers on Monday, the Democratic Alliance said.
DA spokesperson Anthony Benadie 10 strikers entered the grounds of Steelcrest High School by jumping over a fence and began toyi-toying.
”The principal asked them to leave, and they were then escorted out of the school gate — thereafter, another group of protesters entered the school.”
He said the protesters then locked the principal and staff in the office block, and about 40 minutes of protesting took place.
The protesters also disrupted a grade-12 examination. The principal then called the police.
”Before the police arrived, the strikers evacuated the school,” said Benadie.
Police spokesperson Izak van Zyl said when police arrived on the scene, the situation was calm.
”Nobody was hurt, but the teachers and pupils were shaken up.”
Van Zyl said that if any strikers were caught intimidating the public, they would be arrested and taken to court.
Benadie said: ”We believe the government has a responsibility to protect those who choose not to strike.”
‘Strike will turn violent’
Meanwhile, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has warned that the strike could ”turn violent” if its pay demands were not met.
The strike, which began on June 1, has crippled government hospitals and schools across the country, and unions say a new government offer of a 7,25% wage increase was not enough.
”Workers will be soon angry, they will be frustrated, and they will see anybody going to work, irrespective of how genuine their reasons are, as basically betraying their cause,” the South African Press Agency (Sapa) quoted Cosatu general secretary Zwelenzima Vavi as saying.
Speaking to the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union national congress in Cape Town, he said: ”And very soon the strike will turn violent.”
But the tough talk was accompanied by an offer to return to the negotiating table.
Cosatu has revised its demand for a 12% wage rise to 10%.
South Africa’s government vowed on Sunday to press ahead with firing essential workers striking for higher pay despite being barred by law, a move denounced as provocative by labour unions.
They have begun receiving dismissal letters, Sapa reported.
The labour strife has dented some essential services, with members of the public complaining that they cannot get through to government workers.
A domestic worker in KwaZulu-Natal province was told ”there were no workers and there was nobody at the hospitals” when she called an emergency number in a bid to save her pregnant daughter’s life.
Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi said the number of striking employees had gradually declined, but there were increasing reports of intimidation against those wanting to return to work.
The government has deployed soldiers to help doctors tend to patients at some hospitals.
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel has said the government had not worked out the financial cost of the strike, but added that it had hit the poor without access to private healthcare.
Cosatu, a crucial part of an alliance with the ruling African National Congress, has accused President Thabo Mbeki of promoting the interests of big business and neglecting poor workers, an allegation he denies. ‒ Sapa, Reuters