Cape Town - A group of about 100 undertakers made their way along on the N2 carrying coffins as part of a nationwide funeral industry protest yesterday.
Despite proclaiming earlier this week that they would not be part of the undertakers protest, Western Cape staff took to the streets yesterday.
Pastor Kenny McDillon, on the interim undertakers provincial committee, said after a meeting this week, workers in the province decided to join the strike.
The strike has seen thousands of funeral industry employees down tools, across the country and refusing to collect remains from both public and private facilities.
The employees are demanding, among other things, amendments to be made to municipal by-laws to allow bulk storage, removal of the tender system in the industry and a Covid-19 relief fund.
Yesterday, the undertakers made their way to the Department of Home Affairs office in the city centre to hand over a memorandum of demands.
McDillon said protesters made their way at 9am from the Airport Industria to the CBD but were blocked from going any further.
“(Public order police) blocked us and they ordered us to disperse, we refused and they offered a delegation to go through, and we proceeded on to Cape Town. There we had a meeting with the manager of home affairs and dispersed after a peaceful protest.”
He added that protesters went to other funeral homes to ask them to shut down operations.
“We also asked to not be charged for storage of remains at funeral homes for the three days we will be on strike, and they agreed. I believe that today we achieved our goal, which was to get our memorandum received.”
Provincial head of Home Affairs Yusuf Simons received the memorandum on behalf of the department and said he would respond in due course.
Earlier this week, emergency medical services and forensic pathology services (FPS) spokesperson Deanna Bessick said there were overnight reports of some undertakers being prevented from removing decedents from some hospitals and also families being unable to have their deceased loved ones removed from homes.
“Thus far, FPS operations have not been impacted by the protest action. The issues that the undertakers are aggrieved about, to our knowledge, are related to issues regulated nationally, by either Home Affairs or the national Department of Health.
“FPS is not involved with the formulating of legislation, governance or monitoring compliance of the private undertaker industry,” she said.
Spokesperson Popo Maja said the national Health Department’s stance remained the same, that it had noted the strike and had arranged several meetings with those in the industry.
Cape Times