Cape Town - National Education Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) general secretary Zola Saphetha pledged that solidarity action with Parliament’s staffers would be organised at the nine provincial legislatures.
The union also served the Speaker of the National Assembly, Baleka Mbete, and secretary Gengezi Mgidlana with three-day notices to attend a meeting with Nehawu to resolve the labour dispute.
The union’s letter calling for that meeting was finalised after 4pm on Tuesday.
“We won’t attend a meeting attended by acting (officials) and deputies,” Saphetha told Nehawu workers.
“We will mobilise provinces’ legislatures to support you in solidarity.”
However, Mgidlana on Tuesday evening said Parliament would from Wednesday invoke a 2010 interdict on protest action in the parliamentary precinct.
That interdict of September 10, 2010 stipulates that it applied from that day “or at any time thereafter”.
Effectively this means the police will now have to act against any protesters inside the parliamentary precinct.
Asked why the interdict would now be invoked, Mgidlana said it was a case of monitoring how a situation progressed.
However, he committed to ongoing engagements with the union representatives whom he had been meeting into the evening.
“We may not be in agreement on the issues on the table, but we are talking,” he said.
Parliamentary Nehawu branch officials on Tuesday confirmed the work stoppage was unprotected, but vowed to continue.
Nehawu represents 981 of Parliament’s 1 389 employees, mostly white collar employees in the committee and documents sections, translation unit and the parliamentary protection services, but also long-term cleaners who had not been outsourced. Parliament’s Nehawu branch is the biggest in the Western Cape.
At the heart of the dispute is the payment of performance bonuses, but also other working conditions matters like pension provisions, recognition of employees’ improved qualifications, medical aid cover, long service awards and group life to cover funeral costs and education of the deceased’s children. The agreement also stipulated performance bonuses must be paid on the total package, not pensionable income as Parliament said earlier.
These provisions form part of the March 2015 agreement signed by Nehawu and Parliament. Yet on Monday, Mgidlana maintained Nehawu was raising “new issues” outside the agreement, and added these could only be raised after the agreement ends in March 2017.
He emphasised Parliament was acting on the union’s demands and had already implemented notch increments and subsistence and travel allowance increases.
On Wednesday, Saphetha dismissed this, saying key agreements like a joint countrywide benchmark study on cost-to-company packages were ignored as Parliament instead appointed its own consultants.
Instead he told striking Nehawu workers the agreement was valid, and binding on management.
“What is contained in the agreement is due to you,” he said, pledging national union support.
“We shall not allow an institution of this nature to be managed by people who do not have the capacity to do so.”
Parliament’s visitors centre was closed on Tuesday, leading to long queues.
Four of the six committee meetings did not take place.
A series of meetings was held, including one, it is understood, in which Nehawu briefed the ANC chief whip Stone Sizani and other ANC MPs.
It was confirmed on Tuesday there were two special chief whip forums, which bring together all political parties in Parliament.
There it was decided the afternoon sitting would go ahead as it was up to Parliament and the union to resolve their grievances.
The ANC parliamentary caucus also met to be briefed on the work stoppage.
Sizani’s spokesman Moloto Mothapo said there was concern the strike would affect Parliament’s operations: “We remain confident in the capability of the two parties to reach a consensus,” he added.
DA chief whip John Steenhuisen took a hardline stance, saying neither Mgidlana nor Mbete had shown the required leadership to mitigate disruptions.
“Considering the numerous financial and educational crises the country is currently facing, we simply cannot afford to lose a moment’s worth of work,” he added.
Political Bureau
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