SOUTH Africa’s Department of Home Affairs has been served with a notice to strike on 19 June by unions representing employees at the department.
The Department of Home Affairs and the unions on Tuesday were set for conciliation at the General Public Service Sector Bargaining Council (GPSSBC), in line with the Constitutional Court’s directive that the dispute be referred for conciliation.
The department has been engaged in a protracted dispute with the Public Servants Association (PSA), the National Health Education & Allied Workers Union (NEHAWU) and the National Union of Public Service and Allied Workers (NUPSAW) on the issue of implementing new opening and closing hours. The dispute dates as far back as March 2015.
The unions objected to officials working on Saturdays, which, according to them, officials would effectively be required to work for six days a week as opposed to five days. This, according to the unions, meant extra transport costs for officials spread over six days, to cover Saturdays, and costs incurred towards caring for members” minor children, as well as leave allocation.
Following the unions’ demands that the department either compensate employees working on Saturdays or revert to a system where employees work a five-day week, from Monday to Friday, the department claimed it is not in a financial position to consider and accede to this demand.
Instead, it tabled an alternative settlement proposal in which officials would be granted a day off during the week, on Wednesdays, to ensure that they do not extend their days over 6 days. This would mean that officials would work a full day on a Saturday comprising an eight-hour shift. Officials would still work a total of 40 hours per week.
The unions rejected the department’s offer and instead tabled a further demand that the department suspend the 2015 circular that gave effect to the implementation of the 2015 opening and closing hours, suggesting that officials should be allowed to work on Saturdays albeit on a voluntary basis.
The proposal was rejected by the department, which claimed it would pose serious challenges for proper planning, work scheduling and accountability, and would also compromise service delivery which the public has become accustomed to.
Meanwhile, NEHAWU North West in the North West Province is appalled by the persistence of the Health Department and the provincial government in forcefully introducing labour brokering and outsourcing of core functions of the public service to certain individuals and NGOs in the Province.
NEHAWU said: ‘Despite all the efforts by the union in fighting privatisation, casualisation and labour brokering together with COSATU and all the memorandums delivered to both the Provincial Government and Department of Health it is now clear that they have taken a decision to proceed with the introduction of this cruel system which is a pure anti-worker tendency aimed at suppressing any initiative to create permanent and sustainable employment for our people.
‘The Provincial Government and the Health Department went ahead without any consultation to introduce the private Buthelezi Ambulance services. For us this represents steps to partially collapse the Public Service Emergency Services. This comes at a very expensive bill to the department and taxpayers have to foot the bill. This is inconsistent with the vision of the ANC-led government of providing quality health care especially to the majority of the populace that is unemployed, poor and living in abject poverty.
‘We have it on good authority that the Buthelezi Emergency Services is been given top priority in terms of payments. Their bill is prioritised over all other financial commitments including but not limited to compromise workers in the public service whose overtime payments are delayed because priority has been given to this company.
‘Public Servants who provide emergency services are being rendered useless through this private employer because their service to the public service is not beneficial to certain individuals who hold authority in the Department and Government.
‘At least now we know that there was never any willingness to build more capacity in the Public Services’ Emergency Service (EMRS) and neither was there any intention to improve the capacity of the EMRS to provide quality service which our people deserve.
‘The privatisation of this core function of government is a clear indication that there was never any intention to further capacitate the employees working in the EMRS hence the privatisation and the move to collapse even the Emergency Service College which is a public sector institution that happens to be the only hope to offer necessary skills for the previously disadvantaged youth to enter this field of profession.
‘The tendency of not consulting has become a permanent feature of the government as an employer. The Department has further taken a decision to outsource the EMRS Call Centre to Royal Bafokeng. We view this move as nothing but another step towards the collapsing of the Public Service and the cutting down of workers as a way of running away from the financial crisis facing some of the Departments. Equally, this step is a move to further deepen the financial crisis of the Public Service.
‘As a step to avoid the filling of vacant funded positions, the Government and the Department have entered into a multi-year agreement worth millions by outsourcing key functions of the Public Service in particular in the Health Department. This is a blockade of filling vacant permanent positions to members of the society and it breeds the enslaving of desperate people who will be exploited by these brutal NGOs whose managers are friends with senior officials of the Department.
‘While we acknowledge that unemployment is a serious issue in our country we also acknowledge that signing a multi-year outsourcing agreement is an illegal act considering the bill signed by the President on labour brokering. These are some of the desperate attempts by those who will stop at nothing in order to enrich themselves.
‘The Marang NGO has been given this contract to close gaps of vacant positions in all Health institutions in the North West Province. Historically NGOs are very bad employers who have a tendency to recycle workers and refuse them labour rights.
‘We call upon the department and Government to go back to the culture of respecting fellow stakeholders who include trade unions and learn to consult properly and engage in good faith. We further call on Government and the Department to immediately stop the intended outsourcing of the Emergency Service Call Centre.
‘We also call on Government and the Department to do away with the Buthelezi Ambulance Services, we believe that this act is nothing but a total waste of money and a duplication of services. Special attention should be directed into building the capacity of public service’s emergency services and to ensure that there is adequate staffing and the availability of necessary resources.
‘We further call on Government to immediately terminate the contract that has been signed with Marang and focus of advertising posts in the public service for the permanent employment of our people. NEHAWU hereby makes a call for the reversal of all initiatives of privatisation and labour brokering in the Health Department. We demand safe and dignified office space for Social Development employees, this matter that cannot be ignored anymore and it requires decisive leadership of Government that is sympathetic towards workers.
‘Failure to adhere to this request in 30 days shall result in a massive rolling action throughout the Province and we vow to shut the entire Public Service down where we organise if the employer continues with these self-enrichment schemes of privatisation, labour brokering, union bashing but over and above, government must do away with the Marang NGO which happens to be an organ belonging to a former Doctor of the Department who is also a friend to the Head Of the Department of Health.”
• Hundreds of workers have been on strike since May 24 at Dynamic Commodities, an export fruit and ice cream manufacturing company operating from the Coega Industrial Development Zone in Port Elizabeth.
The workers are contracted by labour broker firm, Outsource. They are demanding an increase in their wages and an improvement in working conditions. Security Officers Civil Rights and Allied Workers Union (SOCRAWU) Eastern Cape provincial organiser Thokozani Nogoqa said: ‘We are angry that Outsource does not want our members to organise in their factory.’
He stressed: ‘The bone of contention is the working conditions of the workers.’ Nogoqa said people were working over 12 hours in fridges. He said the company refused to provide special clothing, and did not provide transport at night, when some of the employees lived as far away as Uitenhage and New Brighton.
SOCRAWU member Samson Brown said: ‘We are tired of working for labour brokers. ‘We have members who are earning R8.34 an hour. Most of our members have been working for this company for many years, but they are still casual workers. Managers don’t allow workers to visit the toilet, often. We have experienced numerous cases where workers ended up peeing on themselves because they were not allowed to go to the toilets.’
Brown added: ‘There is not even one black person at the management level. All managers are white and coloured people.’ A line inspector earning R13.96 an hour, Zine Nyengule, said: ‘I am not even a permanent worker, despite the number of years I have been here. We work till late in the night and we are not paid for overtime.’
She also accused the managers of using racist language. Vuyokazi Hlati, a line inspector earning R16.50 an hour, said: ‘We are the last to leave the company after the product is finished. We are not allowed to leave the product half done. We always face the risk of getting robbed when we are going home, because the company is deep in the bushes. We get transport at night after walking for a distance of four kilometres away from here. We are also not paid for going home late.’
