Durban — All South Africans’ eyes will be on the health sector today (Monday) as the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) has vowed to intensify its strike that began last week.
The union is demanding a 10% salary increase, of which 3% was granted last year, and a R2 500 housing allowance for workers.
Secretary-general of Nehawu, Zola Saphetha, said they wanted to demonstrate to the government the seriousness of their requests.
Saphetha said there had been a concerted effort to underplay the role and significance of public servants, who were at the coalface of service delivery.
The government continued to show public sector workers the middle finger and displayed high levels of arrogance by disregarding their plight even during the ongoing facilitation process at the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council, he said.
Hence the strike would continue until the government acceded to the workers’ demands.
Since the start of the strike, there has been chaos at health institutions, with many patients left abandoned. Some have been unable to see their doctors, while others have been unable to obtain their chronic medication.
Striking workers blocked the entrances to health facilities, and investigations are under way to determine whether four people who died last week did so as a result of the strike.
“We have a duty to protect and defend collective bargaining and the rights of workers in the face of the employer’s drive to degrade and break it down. Section 23 of the Constitution on the right to strike is sacrosanct for us,” he said.
Saphetha said the employer “arrogantly” demanded that they drop the dispute process and return to the council to engage in the 2023/24 public service wage negotiations.
He said this showed how far the government was prepared to go to undermine and collapse collective bargaining and dispute resolution mechanisms by imposing their will on workers.
“We are aware that certain ministers inside the mandating committee of the employer have refused to support the new minister, Noxolo Kiviet, to resolve the impasse. Instead, they engage in tactics to divide unions, and we want to warn them that this approach is regressive and will collapse the public service,” said Saphetha.
He said Minister of Health Dr Joe Phaahla had first said the deaths last week were a result of the strike, but had then contradicted himself.
Saphetha said all their rights would remain reserved until the state had concluded its investigation.
The Defend Our Democracy campaign has condemned the intimidation aimed at nurses and doctors who opted to work during the Nehawu strike.
They said they were concerned about the impact of the strike on patients, with four people reported to have died as a direct result of the protest action.
“Reports emerging from hospitals of sjamboks being used to intimidate those who have opted to work; of ambulances being turned away from hospital gates; of patients’ soiled bedding and urine bags not being changed; of patients going hungry; and of a handful of doctors and nurses performing operations in adverse conditions; leave us extremely concerned,” they said.
Furthermore, they said it was time to ask what the government’s priorities were, and if it was concerned about the immediate and potentially long-term impact of the strike on the health sector.
“Will the visit of the health minister to a few hospitals be enough to stem the unfolding crisis?” the campaign group asked.
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