By Goitsemang Tlhabye 
1h ago
Pretoria – The National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union has given President Cyril Ramaphosa seven days to heed the call by workers to deal with the “appallingly unsafe working conditions” in hospitals.
It also wants workers to be paid what is due to them, failing which there would be a “shutdown like no other”.
Members of the union and affiliate organisations gathered at the Union Buildings yesterday to submit a memorandum of demands to the Presidency.
General Secretary Zola Saphetha said members were stuck between a rock and a hard place, as when they complained they were dismissed, and when they complied they died.
Saphetha said they were dismayed that after having put their weight behind Ramaphosa’s presidency, he was the one now ignoring workers’ pleas.
He said that for this reason the party had handed a memorandum to the director-general in the Presidency, and it would be up to Ramaphosa whether to heed their calls or not.
Their demands are for workplaces to ensure full compliance with the Occupational Health and Safety Act, and ensure that risk assessments and infection control and prevention measures are put in place.
They also want the president to ensure the immediate establishment of health committees in all workplaces and Department of Health to issue a circular prohibiting hospital managers from preventing workers going into quarantine if they believed they had been exposed to Covid-19, whether at home or at the workplace. This in addition to the demand that workers had to also be screened daily, with the department rolling out a national testing program of non-communicable diseases.
Saphetha said the reason for this was information they had received that many frontline workers actually lived with underlying diseases without being aware of them.
They are also demanding that a risk allowance for frontline workers be implemented, and for the government to abandon the current decentralised and fragmented approach in the procurement of personal protective equipment.
The union also called for urgent procurement and provision of adequate protective equipment without further delays.
“We are calling on the government who were placed by us in power, that it is unlawful for them to run to courts demanding them to nullify an agreement from 2018 after having paid for the past two years.”
Losi was referring to the announcement at a special council meeting of the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council, wherein the government announced that it would be giving members a 0% salary increase from April1, 2020.
It was for this reason the union called on the government to stop wasting money through protracted legal processes.
Saphetha added: “We demand that the president responds within seven days, failing which we declare our intention to embark on a national campaign and withdraw our labour-power from September10 until our demands are met.”
Pretoria News
