Pretoria - Workers at Huis Davidtsz Old Age Homes are currently protesting outside the home, over a lack of formal employment after working there for close to 20 years, and others even more.
Disgruntled nurses, volunteers, chefs and cleaners are demonstrating outside after working there for more than a decade with no contracts and for being underpaid, among other things.
They are lead by the EFF, and police were deployed to maintain order.
They also told Pretoria News about ill-treatment they experience everyday.
“I've been working here for years but I still earn R1800 and I'm a single mother of three children."
“When we visit the Department of Labour they tell us we don't have UIF because we are not registered.”
Shop steward Martha Morake said: “With the pay slip that we still use, we can't even take loans or do anything because they want with the recent ones."
“We are working under discrimination because even today all the workers still use only one ABSA bank that's in Kwaggasrand Shopping Centre and when we tell her that it's inconvenient for us, the manager tells us that there is nothing she can do,” Morake said.
Picture: Rudzani Matshili
They are also accusing the home of racism against both black patients and workers.
“This is an eight-storey building and there are floors dedicated only to black patients who are very sick. The tiles on that floor are cracked and the furniture there is broken,” another alleged.
The workers also alleged they were not allowed to take sick days off, adding employers deduct money from the little they earned.
“When you take a day off to go to the clinic, the manager phones the clinic to check if you are really there. We have a doctor here that you have to pay to see and if you choose to the clinic instead, you get into trouble for that,” they said.
Nurses also cleaned, cooked and did laundry as they were understaffed.
The workers have vowed not to go back to work until they signed contracts.
The manager was still occupied when Pretoria News tried to get her side of the story.
Mampuru Monamudi of the EFF said they would ensure the workers’ demands were met.