Cape Town - The National Union of Public Service and Allied Workers (Nupsaw) has vowed to protest and boycott public hearings by the Department of Employment and Labour involving community healthcare workers.
The union has also received support from the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu), who called on its affiliated unions to show solidarity by mobilising members, officials, shop stewards, and activists for a series of protests at Department of Employment and Labour offices in the Eastern Cape, Western Cape and Gauteng.
Protests are taking place across the country at venues where the Department of Employment and Labour is conducting the public hearings.
Nupsaw is responsible for organising the majority of members of community healthcare workers employed by the Department of Health.
Nupsaw referred to the hearings as an attack on collective bargaining, as there was already an agreement concluded by the Department of Health and the Department of Employment and Labour in the Public Health and Social Development Sectoral Bargaining Council (PHSDSBC), on the standardisation of remuneration of community healthcare workers.
“The Department of Employment and Labour has been playing underhanded tactics since last year December until early this year in January, when frankly asked not to proceed with its envisaged and predetermined plans to place all community healthcare workers under the Ministerial Sectoral Determination as far as their condition of employment is concerned,” a Nupsaw statement said.
“We are saying away with this sectoral determination because it’s going to take all the rights (away) to bargain for better working conditions of these community healthcare workers,” said Nupsaw organiser Sbonile Jeza.
“Our government in particular through this Department of Employment and Labour is again driving the agenda of austerity measures.
“They don’t want to pay workers who are performing a decent job like community health-care workers. So their reason is to cut the budget, to say we are going to pay you peanuts, we are going to exploit you.”
In an earlier statement, Saftu said: “The government is contemplating removing community healthcare workers from the PHSDBC sectoral wage agreement and placing them under the national minimum wage threshold.”
Department of Employment and Labour spokesperson Teboho Thejane said the public hearings were looking at plans for redrafting the sectoral determination and therefore roadshows were under way for inputs.
“After consultations are done and based on information at hand the determination can be made about the sectoral determination in the sector.”