By Lungile Ntimba
The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union wants (Nehawu) wants Higher Education and Training Minister Nobuhle Nkabane to urgently resolve what it says is the exploitation of its members in the department.
The union says the department is working with individuals who are not part of its organisational structure, and more than 200 people have been on contracts for over 10 years with no commitment to absorb them permanently.
Nehawu general secretary Zola Saphetha said on Tuesday that the union has witnessed the mistreatment of workers from the department’s management and poor administration.
“Overtime now we have been witnessing poor administration in the department especially at head office, which systematically provides poor service and support to the PSET (Post-School Education and Training),” he said.
“This has resulted in a complete collapse of the Corporate Services Branch which seriously remains with skeleton staff due to the non-filling of vacant funded posts especially at senior management, using outdated human resource policies and a dysfunctional organisational structure whereby certain individuals within the department are working, but not appearing anywhere in the operational organisational structure of the department.”
This had led to the non-payment of salaries, with some workers being owed at least three months’ salaries by the department with no guarantee of being paid anytime soon.
“Our members and workers at the department had to endure miseries, pains and suffocation brought about by the treatment from presupposed caring but intransigent management of the department” said Saphetha.
He has also accused some senior managers of unethical conduct and attempting to intimidate the union’s members.
“This is nothing short of a direct attack on our union and we shall not tolerate these blatant attempts to intimidate our members for simply doing what is right which is to represent members and workers in the department as dictated to by the South African laws,” said Saphetha.
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