Pretoria - Members of the National Union of Public Servants and Allied Workers (Nupsaw) will today flock to Church Square and remain there until Friday to make the government aware of their demands.
A lack of pay increases and the use of contract workers are two of them.
The union, affiliated to the South African Federation of Trade Unions, has been mobilising public servants to gather outside the National Treasury at Church Square in an attempt to get the attention of Minister of Finance Tito Mboweni and the Cabinet.
At the centre of their grievances is a demand for the implementation of the last leg of the three-year public servants' wage agreement of 2018.
The union’s national convener, Solly Malema, said: “This is a strong call for the government and the minister to tell the Cabinet that public servants are fed up with the government refusing to recognise them.
“It is disturbing and inhumane for the Gauteng Department of Infrastructure Development to terminate the contracts of Expanded Public Works Programme workers with more than six years of service without any form of training provided.
“The department terminated contracts during the hard lockdown and against the directive from the President of the Republic (Cyril Ramaphosa) and the Minister of Public Works (Patricia de Lille),” Malema said.
“We reject the notion that these exploitative programmes are meant for job creation. The programme is a clear orchestrated plan to exploit public service workers. These workers have been enslaved for years by the ANC-led government that refuses to fill up vacant posts in the public service, while these workers are playing a crucial role and are the poorest of the poor. They deserve to be treated with dignity and not marginalised by the government’s exploitative law and policies,” said Malema.
They also want the reinstatement of all community health workers in Gauteng under the Department of Infrastructure Development with back pay to the date of termination of their contracts and the reinstatement of all workers dismissed by the City of Ekurhuleni.
Pretoria News