Public servants who went on strike on June 1 risk losing the moral high ground with intimidation tactics that have diluted high levels of public sympathy.
President Thabo Mbeki’s decision to turn down a 55% increase for government ministers, proposed by the Moseneke Commission on the remuneration of public officers, has removed a key dynamic from the dispute; until now, unions have juxtaposed Mbeki’s mooted increase against government’s paltry offer to their members.
Where to now? Trade union leaders must surely acknowledge that in terms of South Africa’s highly progressive labour laws, procedural strikers are protected from dismissal.
But with these rights come responsibilities. There is no excuse for union members who deny others’ right of free association. The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union’s tactic of closing private schools, in some cases with threats, is unacceptable.
If private school teachers took voluntary solidarity action with their public school counterparts, it would be a different matter. Also unacceptable have been decisions by striking health workers to stop those who have tried to continue nursing and providing essential medical care. People have died as a result, and that is criminal.
A public sector strike is different from a strike at a baked bean factory. To stop a production line is one thing; to forcibly stop teaching and nursing is to harm the innocent.
To regain the ground they have lost, union leaders must condemn intimidation and violence unequivocally. Until now, we have heard only lip-service; there is no evidence that they have done anything concrete to rein in or discipline the men and women of violence.
The skills gap in trade unions, created by the absorption into government of many seasoned unionists, has been highlighted: union officials without a rich history in labour do not know the discipline and painstaking solidarity work on which successful strikes depend.
There is a lot of work for trade unionists to do this weekend to win back public sympathy. Intimidation must be stamped out. In our troubled hospitals the public and the army must be free to assist without being targeted as strike-breakers. Workers will begin to feel the pinch of lost wages; communities must be called to assist.
And, at the bargaining table this weekend, government must surely recognise that it has the space for a deadlock-breaking settlement, which redresses pay backlogs.
As a report in this edition shows, public servants have received wage increases that have barely kept pace with inflation for the seven years of this decade. With revenue overruns and consistent growth, there must be scope for a 9% offer.
Parliament’s pursed lips
There is nothing quite like a nice, crisp court judgement to make an important point. And acting judge Mzo Ngcamu took full advantage of his position this week to strike a blow for the principle that whistleblowers should be protected from victimisation.
He handed a crucial victory — and a costs order — to axed parliamentary finance chief Harry Charlton. He ruled that Charlton could proceed with his claim that he had been unfairly dismissed for revealing, and then continuing to pursue, the Travelgate fraud, in which MPs and travel agents effectively stole millions from the legislature.
Parliament had sought to have Charlton’s labour court claim dismissed on the grounds that he was not a whistleblower and could not claim shelter under the Protected Disclosures Act.
Ngcamu disagreed, saying Parliament had itself enacted the legislation that requires an employer to take responsibility for the protection of whistleblowing employees. “It does not make sense that members made a law that does not or was not intended to apply to them,” he said. To suggest otherwise would be a “national embarrassment”, he added, saying Charlton was entitled in terms of his job description to disclose irregularities.
Charlton’s case against Parliament can now proceed.
He has maintained — ever since he was escorted out of his office in December 2005 — that he was being punished for pursuing initial evidence that Parliament was being defrauded, and then for persisting in attempts to uncover the full extent of the scam, even when it became embarrassing for some powerful political figures.
As several reports in the M&G demonstrated last year, there is no doubt that his insistence on chasing down the Travelgate money got up the noses of his superiors, as did his clashes with other managers over a badly executed IT project.
Parliament says he was dismissed for “gross financial misconduct”, but the ludicrous disciplinary hearing that deprived him of his job did little to convince anyone that that was true. And dark hints of criminal charges by parliamentary officials have come to naught. The case, if it is not settled, will establish the truth of all this.
Meanwhile, anyone who is sitting on a cache of compromising documents and is fearful of the consequences of revealing them, should say a quiet thanks to Ngcamu, pucker up and blow the whistle.