Emilia Maloi is furious with President Thabo Mbeki.
”Why doesn’t he talk about the reasons for our strike?” demands Maloi, a senior intensive care unit nurse with 12 years’ service at Cape Town’s Tygerberg Hospital, who was fired this week for joining the public service strike.
”We work with broken equipment, inadequate facilities, not enough drugs for our patients, and we’re paid pathetic salaries.
”Thousands of qualified nurses are leaving the country, doubling our workload. And the only words our president has for us is to condemn vandalism and violence.”
Maloi, one of 80 strikers fired by the Western Cape health department, earns R6 800 a month after 19 years of service. Her dismissal takes place against a backdrop of chronic understaffing, including a 54% shortage of nurses in primary health clinics.
A senior official of Cosatu’s health union, Nehawu, she is convinced she was sacked because the government wants to weaken labour. ”They’re trying to show the workers that they’re strong . They’re making examples to bring strikers to their knees,” she said.
Other dismissed workers interviewed by the Mail & Guardian, all senior unionists or strike organisers, echoed her suspicions. ”It’s very hard not to see this as an attempt to break the unions’ support. Why were we singled out when thousands are striking?” asked Rafique Patton, who learned she was out of a job from a announcement posted by the department on a hospital notice board.
Patton, a clerk at Groote Schuur hospital for 21 years, earns R6 500 a month.
Shop steward Gail Dreyer, fired after working in Groote Schuur’s catering department for 21 years, earns R3 800 a month before deductions. She also believes she was singled out as a strike leader.
”I’m very angry. Geraldine [Fraser-Moleketi] must remember she’s a coloured just like us. Because she’s now wearing all those lekker designer suits, she’s forgetting the workers,” Dreyer said.
Nehawu provincial secretary Suraya Jawoodeen lashed out at police action during the strike, saying the government had chosen a military solution to an industrial relations problem.
Referring to Mbeki’s attack this week in the National Assembly on ”criminal activity” during the strike, Jawoodeen said: ”They’re hypocrites. Where’s the morality when working people have to wait three years for an operation and can’t get medicine? The government is imposing inadequate budgets on workers who get inadequate services — where’s the morality in that?”
The Western Cape health department strongly denied singling out shop stewards and strike organisers. ”The department have no idea who the dismissed workers are. These workers fired themselves because they’re guilty of gross misconduct and of compromising the service delivery of health services and endangering the lives of patients and fellow colleagues,” said spokesperson Faiza Steyn.
Dr Saadiq Kariem, senior medical superintendent at Groote Schuur, said four workers had been fired from the hospital after ”clear evidence of intimidation and complaints, in writing”, against them.