Popcru has accused the Congress of the People’s (Cope) Willie Madisha of inciting correctional services staff to reject government’s occupation specific dispensation (OSD) offer signed in June.
”It has come to our attention that Madisha is giving our members wrong information about the package signed last month,” said Police and Prisons Civil Right Union (Popcru) secretary Kwenza Nxesi.
”He is doing it deliberately so that he can win their hearts. He wants them to join the union federation that he is trying to establish.â€
Popcru is the affiliate of the Congress of South Africa Trade Unions (Cosatu), the union federation once led by Madisha before he was fired in 2008.
Madisha, who is now one of the leaders of the African National Congress (ANC) splinter organisation, Cope, recently announced that he was in the process of forming a union federation.
Cosatu is in alliance with the ANC and Cope does not have a union affiliated to it.
Nxesi described the OSD package as the ‘salary package of a decadeâ€, saying that they had signed it because it was a good offer.
”The package will make a huge difference. It means more than 20% salary increment to other levels in the department of correctional services.
”It means 17,4% salary increment to entry level employees.”
He said they had decided to visit all the prisons in the country to explain to workers what the OSD package entailed. They would start in the Free State next week.
”We will be telling them not to listen to Madisha’s lies. We know that he is still bitter because we were one of the unions that supported his expulsion,” said Nxesi.
Madisha was not immediately available to comment. — Sapa