POPCRU *POPCRU Media Statement, 25 August 2010* *POPCRU joins the strike!*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, peacefully and unarmed, to assemble, to demonstrate, to picket and to present petitions". 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 harbours 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* -- 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] .
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