NEHAWU will protest at the ANC National Policy Conference for the ANC to pay our members and staff their salaries

28 July 2022

The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union [NEHAWU] is organising a protest to demonstrate at the African National Congress [ANC] National Policy Conference on Friday 29th July 2022 at Nasrec Expo Centre Gate 5 and 6 at 08am.

The demonstration comes against the background of a continuous failure by the ANC to pay our members and workers their salaries and provident fund in order to improve their conditions of service. The ANC has once again failed to honour and fulfil its contractual obligations by paying workers their salaries and contributing to their medical aid and provident fund. The ANC has previously made commitments that this late payment of salaries saga would not occur again, however the contrary has happened.

The national union even went as far as taking the ANC to Labour Court, where we filled papers on behalf of our members and staff of the ANC demanding that they be remunerated immediately. Our action of approaching the court forced the ANC to pay workers and we thought that this matter was settled once and for all that the ANC would strictly adhere to its obligation of paying workers their salaries.

The late payment of salaries can never be justified bearing in mind the economic hardships faced by workers and society in general. The ANC however demonstrate that it does not care about the plight of these workers amidst the rising costs of living – food prices have gone up, petrol prices have drastically increased as well as electricity, interest rates and other basic necessities.

The ANC should be ashamed of what it has done to these workers by not paying them salaries, contributing to the medical aid and provident fund for the last two months. The importance of a salary, medical aid and provident fund can never at any given moment be understated in creating social security for workers and families to these workers.

As NEHAWU, we have taken this unprecedented step to protest at the Policy Conference to send a clear message to the ANC that it must treat our members and workers with dignity and humility.  

The national union will also use the demonstration at the Policy Conference to call on the leadership of the ANC through the President and Minister of Finance to speedily intervene in the South African Revenue Services [SARS] Strike in order to find a lasting solution to the impasse underway at SARS. This is informed by the fact that the ANC is the governing party and ought to provide a strategic direction in an institution like SARS as informed by the developmental agenda of the country and the role that SARS plays in that agenda including in the economy that is declining. 

As NEHAWU, we have been involved in a protracted strike at SARS as a result of a deadlock in wage negotiations with the employer unwavering that it does not have money despite the tremendous and sterling work done by our members which enabled SARS to make a record tax revenue collection of R1.5 trillion rands in the last financial year.

Our members have placed the following demands before SARS:

- Salaries be adjusted using October 2021 CPI of 5% + 7%, across the board for employees within the Bargaining Unit.

- A Single Term agreement and implementation date of 1st April 2022

- On Medical Aid and Housing Allowance, full and equal medical aid and housing allowance for all employees.

- An introduction of Pandemic leave of 10 working days per annum.

- A R2000 gift (token of appreciation) to all employees

- Pay Progression – An annual adjustment upwards on the applicable pay band of 1.5% where the employee has met the required performance standard.

Equally, we will use the protest to register the plight of our members at the University of South Africa [UNISA] following the decision of the Vice-Chancellor and Management to terminate unlawfully their employment contracts demonstrating a total disregard to the rights of workers and labour laws.

The University has been besieged by myriad of issues, which amongst others entail mismanagement, collapse of governance, maladministration, undermining collective bargaining and rights of workers.

UNISA as the largest open distance learning institution in the Continent is critical in providing access to our people towards quality education. It is upon these basis that we call on the leadership of ANC to intervene through its deployee in government, the Minister of Higher Education and Training, Science and Technology for solution and action in the impasse at UNISA.

Issued by Lwazi Nkolonzi, National Spokesperson, NEHAWU, 28 July 2022