Response to Mail and Guardian article titled "who are the essential service workers"? It is with regret that we have witnessed the shallow understanding by the learned J-School graduate, who wrote a piece of “who are essential service workers” in the M&G dated 09 September 2010.Whilst we agree that our some of our workers are offering essential services, services whose interruption would endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population, a blanket generalization that all employees must not partake in a protected strike, is unfounded. The LRA does not provide a list of these services except the South African Police Services and the Parliamentary services for reasons of policy, but has subjected other sectors for the indulgence of the essential services committee for reasons of course, to introduce a measure of rigidity. And this has been a problem because the only time the employer will budge on that is only during a strike action and nothing is said after that. As POPCRU we have been running in the Labour Court on the basis sometimes of harmful writings by some media persons that “we are on strike” and such articles were used against us.
On the Labour Appeal Judgment held on the 02nd September 2010 it was established that “not all workers may be declared essential services in a particular institution and some may render non-essential services”, and essential services workers are disallowed to embark on a strike whilst non-essential services employees may participate in a strike action. The Judgment indicated that “….Section 23 (2) (c) of the Constitution guarantees “every worker” the right to strike subject to the limitation imposed in Section 36.Where a limitation is placed on a right, especially one enshrined in a Bill of Rights of the Constitution, courts must ensure that the limitation is restricted to the clear and unequivocal wording of the instrument that validly seek to limit that right. “I in the present matter the SAPS argument that the all of its employees, including those employed under the Public Service Act be included as personnel engaged in the essential service is neither justifiable nor reasonable”. Section 71 of the Labour Relations Act no.66 of 1995 as amended provides a designation of a service as an essential service through submissions to an essential committee and also provided for a resolution of the minimum service level agreement but over the years, the employer has abdicated it’s responsibilities to finalize on same. During the strike action a notice was issued which disallowed the health sector and some other departments to embark on a strike, and the employer failed in it’s obligation to call the Trade Unions to debate the matter. It is uncomplimentary for the Department of Public Service and Administration to abdicate their role not to return clarities during the strike action because it was an open secret that their court interdicts were used to defocus the strike and demobilize the workers on a clear wage dispute. The inherent conflict nature of negotiations sometimes negate a clear tabling of these imperatives by the employer on the basis that such is tabled to diffuse the strike and that has proved to be unworkable over the past six years. To further suggest that the strike “was not as much a strike but a service delivery protest” in an understatement and a real undermining of the provisions of Section 64 of the LRA which explicitly says “Every employee has the right to strike and every employer has recourse to lock-out” and necessarily strikes comes after all processes have been exhausted through Section 67 (2) (A&B)amended that “A person does not commit a delict or a breach of contract by taking part in a protected strike or a protected lock-out, or any conduct in contemplation or in furtherance of a protected strike or a protected lock-out” Strikes will forever be here around as long as the power dynamics are unresolved and as Labour it is our only important commodity that cannot be outsourced as other departments outsource their services to capital. Finally,we share the same concerns as the writer on the non-respose by the employers, and it incumbent of the employer to unlock all these limitations to ensure that the LRA continues to serve a the necessary valve to ease power struggles between the employer and employee organizations. Forward with working class power! Issued by: Norman Mampane National Spokesperson Tel: 0112424600/4615 Cell: 0720737959 Fax: 0866253054 Email: [email protected] 01 Marie Road Auckland Park 2006 -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] .
