Low salaries are causing soldiers to have their homes repossessed and are breaking up their families, a union said on Sunday.
The South African Security Forces Union vowed to fight to have soldiers' benefits brought in line with that of other members of the security cluster, to improve morale and discipline, the union's national organiser Fieldmore Mapeto said in a statement, issued after the union's national executive committee meeting.
An unwillingness by defence management to better its members' conditions of service had been exacerbated by the "socio-political and economic downturn".
"Sasfu cannot allow the situation where the soldiers are the worst paid in the security cluster and we maintain the [need for] parity in the remuneration of the security cluster."
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He called for the union and ministry of defence to work together to align the defence force's activities with the overall aims of the government's development programme - particularly in areas such as rural and agrarian reform.
Mapeto said Wednesday's protest at the Union Buildings had left the union "politically dilapidated".
Another union, the South African National Defence Union had attempted unsuccessfully to have the march for better working conditions declared lawful, but the city's high court dismissed this.
Following the court's ruling police fired teargas and rubber bullets at a group of Sandu members, wearing civilian clothes, when they climbed over a perimeter fence at the Union Buildings and damaged several cars.
The union called on the defence ministry to release all the soldiers arrested during the protest and drop charges against them.
It also wanted Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu not to carry out her threat to dismiss all the soldier who took part, between about 1 500 and 2 000, according to an estimate by acting chief of the South African National Defence Force, General Themba Matanzima.
Sasfu's Bhekinkosi Bantu Mvovo said the union had 18 000 members. - Sapa
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