The time has come for a settlement in the public-service wage dispute, Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said on Tuesday.
He was speaking at the Public Service Coordinating Bargaining Council (PSCBC) where he met Cosatu negotiators.
”We share the sentiment [of] almost everyone in the country that 19 days [has] been quite long … from every respect we need to settle, [but] we will not just settle for anything … that would be detrimental.
”We will not settle for anything that will make members feel that all the 19 days that they put [in] … have been for nothing,” Vavi said.
He was speaking ahead of a meeting between government and union negotiators who were going to spend Tuesday afternoon discussing the last remaining stumbling block — this year’s wage percentage increase.
Unions lowered their wage demand to 9% during the ongoing discussions at the PSCBC.
It is understood that 9% was in the middle of a range of percentage wage-increase demands agreed to by all unions. Government negotiators were meeting in a separate caucus at about 6.30pm to discuss the new demand.
Vavi was not the only bigwig at the PSCBC. Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi also put in an appearance — her first since the strike started on June 1. She spoke to government negotiators.
Cosatu president Willie Madisha was also present at the council.
A small but vocal group of striking public servants protested outside the council’s premises in Centurion, south of Pretoria.
On Friday, protesters forced their way through the gates of the PSCBC, but a confrontation was avoided when union leaders gave an undertaking that the protesters would not vandalise property.
Vavi said on Monday there was no sign that public servants were getting tired of the protest action.
”The strike continues … there is no sign that workers are getting tired; instead they are more angry,” he told a Cosatu conference in Boksburg. ”We want the strike to end as soon as possible. We want it to end in terms that would be more beneficial to workers. The strike continues as long as that has not happened.”
He said he never expected the strike to reach 16 days, thinking it would only last two days before the government came up with a resolution.
Violation of rights
Meanwhile, the dismissal of a group of striking Western Cape health workers was a violation of their patients’ constitutional rights, the Cape High Court has been told. The claim is made in papers by the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in an urgent application to reverse the sackings.
The application, filed last week, was to have been heard on Tuesday, but was postponed by Judge Siraj Desai to Thursday to allow the TAC to reply to the state’s answering affidavits. It is being brought by the TAC and five residents of Cape Town’s Khayelitsha, two of whom are HIV-positive.
According to 2005 figures, one in three mothers-to-be in Khayelitsha is HIV-positive.
The respondents are the Western Cape health minister Pierre Uys, national Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, and Fraser-Moleketi.
In a founding affidavit, TAC organiser Mandla Majola said the dismissals of the 41, all from Khayelitsha clinics, had resulted in an ”unlawful and unreasonable curtailment of health services”.
Thirty of the dismissed strikers were from one facility, the Site B Day Hospital, where they constituted almost half the staff. Majola said a minimum essential service had been in operation at Site B in particular since the strike began.
”That minimum service was especially diminished when the dismissal took place,” he said. The dismissal breached patients’ rights to life and dignity, health services and equality, he added.
Director General of Health Thami Mseleku said in answering papers that the employees who had been dismissed were guilty of unlawful activities such as refusing to provide essential services, despite being specifically employed to do so.
”For the record, I deny that any healthcare service has been curtailed because of the dismissals of some employees,” he said, adding that the conduct of essential service workers who went on strike had been not only unlawful, but also ”highly irresponsible”.
”The dismissals were absolutely necessary to protect the essential services and, most importantly, to protect the lives and health of the conscientious employees who chose not to participate in the strike action and of the public that utilise the essential services.”
Speaking in court on Tuesday before the case was postponed, the senior advocate in the national government’s legal team, Marumo Moerane, told Desai there were no constitutional issues involved. ”It’s really a labour matter disguised as a constitutional matter,” he said. ”It’s a wolf in sheep’s skin. That’s all it is.”
Striking teachers
A crowd of about 150 striking teachers threw stones at the home of an education department official in Lakeview, Soweto on Monday, police said. Captain Julia Claassen said the strikers went to the official’s house after first intimidating the principal of St Matthew’s Secondary School at about 9.30am on Monday.
”They demanded that the lady principal join the crowd in the strike,” she said. The principal was ”rescued” by police, after which the crowd went to the Lakeview Primary School before proceeding to the official’s home near the school. ”They then started to throw stones at the house,” she said.
Claassen said the official had opened a case of malicious damage to property at the Moroka police station. No one was injured and no arrests were made.
Meanwhile, the Catholic Institute of Education (CIE) has condemned violent strike action at the St Matthew’s private school. ”The CIE condemns the violence and damage to property in the strongest terms and calls on educators to act as responsible citizens,” said CIE spokesperson Kelsay Correa in a statement on Tuesday.
Correa said an ”angry mob” carrying sticks, knives, rocks and guns had assaulted the staff of the school as well as wrecked school property. Despite the school being private, learning and teaching had been suspended for almost two weeks. Teachers had been at the school on Monday preparing for exams but not teaching.
”This infringement of the democratic principles of South Africa and the serious violation of human rights of its citizens is viewed by CIE as a direct assault on the stability of this nation,” she said.
The CIE has called on all striking teachers to respect the law and not to engage in acts of intimidation or violence. ”The CIE supports the right of educators to strike for higher salaries, but there is no excuse for invading private property and assaulting people,” she said. — Sapa