MEDIA STATEMENT
25th August 2010
Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union, an Affiliate of COSATU organizing the
South African Police Services, Department of Correctional Services and Traffic
Departments across the country representing more than 145 000 membership hereby
today wish to categorically state its intention to join the current National
Public Service Strike Action as a revolutionary duty to ensure that our working
class power and a demand for a living wage is asserted.
We have gone more than six months in the PSCBC Negotiations with a hope that
the
Employer will play by the rules of engagement as outlined in the Council, but
to
our dismay that has not happened. We have served PSCBC with a notice outlining
our position to join the rest of the public service workers from the 31st of
August 2010.We therefore call upon all our membership as employed through the
Public Service Act to join the strike action.
We wish to reiterate our demand for 8, 6% Wage Increase, R1 000 Housing
Allowance, Implementation date to be effected as of the 01 April 2010 and a
Single-Term Agreement.
We remain confident that the wage demand is affordable on the basis that SAPS
spent a lot on money on changing the ranks, adding more levels in the current
post structure and on contracts for new uniform.
State Brutality
POPCRU has noted the continuation by South African Police Service and Metro
Police to injure the rights of the striking workers on our second week of a
legal strike against slave wages. We have noted the uncalled for incidences of
provocation and usage of rubber bullets by the police men and women, in which
our COSATU led workers are participating in a protected strike in terms of
Labour Relations Act No.64 as amended at Chris Hani Hospital [Baragwanath],
Soweto, and Helen Joseph around Auckland Park and many other areas across the
country.
POPCRU deplores the erosion of settling of labour disputes through engagement
at
the Collective Bargaining table by the employer, and resorting to narrow and
counter-revolutionary methods of using rubber bullets to settle wage disputes.
State [Police] brutality has no vacuum in the current South African Democratic
dispensation, and we are making a clarion call to all deployed workers in the
South African Police Service [SAPS], National Intervention Unit [NIU] and
Technical Response Unit Team [TRUT] to refrain from such improper acts. And
also
we do not subscribe to any form of intimidation from any person whatsoever.
Respect for our Constitution
The South African Constitution states, in the Bill of Rights [Chapter 2,
Section
17] that “everyone has a right,paecefully and unarmed, to assemble, to
demonstrate, to picket and to present petetions”.What we are experiencing is
actually a real state brutality against our own brothers and sisters on a
strike
protected in terms of Section 64(1)(a) of the Labour Relations Act that “every
employee has a right to strike and the issue in dispute must have been referred
to a Council as required respectively”.
Our contention is that all has been applied in terms of the law, but we
continue
to see police officers provoking workers at the picket line. All police
officers
were seen live at the affected picket lines, on television and in all
newspapers
hitting, arresting and shooting peaceful marchers, and allowing themselves to
be
used as buffer zones on a clear wage dispute, in which the employer is
intransigent to resolve. Such tendencies cannot be allowed to rubbish the
tenacious pieces of legislature we have in this country such as Regulation of
Gathering Act No.205 0f 1993 [as commenced in 1996]
The right to demonstrate is, at best, a qualified right.
We cannot allow ignorance of provision of Regulation of Gathering Act by
whosoever across all our Provinces and we call upon SAPU, SAMWU as other
formations organizing in the Criminal Justice to take similar stances to
condemn
what we are experiencing. We reiterate the call by COSATU to condemn, name and
shame any police officer who harbors any intention to crush the picket lines as
we are in a protected strike action.
Usage of batons, rubber bullets, arbitrary detention, water cannons and other
intimidatory methods employed by the State will never demobilize workers on
genuine demands. Our contention is that police officers are expected to manage
the strike and deal with criminals, who take advantage of the strike action.
And
that has not happened since the strike resumed.
POPCRU reiterate its total rejection of the so-called revised pay offer by the
employer. We are calling Parliament to fully apply its mind and refrain from
negotiating in the media, and table a real revised offer for our general
membership in the public service.
We have nothing to lose but the chains that bind us!
For more information contact
POPCRU President-Cde Zizamele Cebekhulu 0825573958
POPCRU General Secretary- Cde Nkosinathi Theledi 0825677803
POPCRU Deputy General Secretary-Cde Lebogang Phepheng 0823728968
Issued by:
Norman Mampane
National Spokesperson
Tel: 0112424600/4615
Cell: 0720737959
Fax: 0866253054
Email: [email protected]
01 Marie Road
Auckland Park
2006
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