Johannesburg - The South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) is fed up with the Department of Education in Limpopo after it failed to pay the salaries of 205 temporary educators.
The union said the teachers had not been paid for five months, meaning over R70 000 was owed to each educator.
In addition, the province is also facing down the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) over an unresolved 2011 dispute.
Sadtu general secretary Mugwena Maluleke said the union’s legal team had become involved in an effort to “force the department to pay”.
“It is almost five months that our teachers have not been paid a salary. Each teacher should get about R17 000 per month, which is a their gross salary. We have instructed our legal team to force them to pay.”
“The (National) Treasury cannot make this the teachers' problem. We have consulted with our lawyers and legal action will be taken. The children are the main ones affected.”
Maluleke would not rule out mass action if teachers are not paid by the end of August.
“Teachers have now become beggars, they live as paupers and are heavily indebted, with mashonisas (loan sharks) going after them,” he said.
“We are running out of patience and will soon return the favour of extending our solidarity to our 205 colleagues through mass action.”
The Limpopo Department of Education’s senior communication manager Naledzani Rasila said payment would be made to all the affected teachers, including back-pay, by Wednesday.
Rasila said the fault lay in the payroll system the department had been using, resulting in no payments going through. “We are aware of the problem and it is as a result of our system that we had been using which was causing delays.”
Limpopo faces further union troubles after Nehawu said it was planing to shut down the province’s public service if its demands, which date back to 2011, are not resolved by the provincial government.
The union’s demands include resolving a dispute over the training of nurses, the re-employment of outsourced workers in security services, laundries and kitchens, and the scrapping of housing rental fees.
This could cripple the administration and shut down learning and otherpublic services.
@heidigiokos
Labour Bureau