Nehawu announces national strike

THE National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) yesterday announced a national strike set to affect “all the technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and community education and training (CET) colleges” across South Africa.

Nehawu general secretary Zola Saphetha said the “national strike” would begin at workplaces on Thursday morning.

“It will run indefinitely until all our demands are met by the Department of Higher Education and Training,” said Saphetha.

He said the union felt the centre of their problems was the leadership and the current director general, Gwebinkundla Qonde.

“We believe that any qualitative change that the department shall undertake must begin with the departure of Mr Qonde as he has no best interest in his heart for the department and the students it seeks to serve,” he said.

“He has treated workers with sheer disdain and dismally failed to guide the department to implement sound human resources policies. Most of the challenges that are being faced by workers at public colleges are administrative by nature. This can be attributed to the failure by the director general to appoint competent HR managers.”

Nehawu said it had organised workers from 50 TVET colleges spread across 264 campuses and CET colleges spread across more than 3 000 community learning centres.

“Our members are ready to make their voices heard and send a strong message to the department that they shall no longer tolerate being exploited and subjected to horrible working conditions.”

Saphetha said their members had been patient since 2015, but now their patience had run out. Nehawu said Qonde had failed to address their grievances.

“In August 2018, the director general issued a circular to instruct college principals to facilitate the appointment of council members in terms of section 10.4B of the CET Act. This is irregular because principals are accountable to the college council. It is ridiculous for the principals to appoint people they should account to. This opens up space for the process to be abused by the principals by appointing their cronies,” said Saphetha.

In terms of the CET Act, Nehawu insisted, it should be the minister of Higher Education and Training who facilitated the appointment of councils.

“This further proves that the director general is not fit to be at the helm of the department as he has proven on numerous occasions that he does not care about the proper running of the department, or about young people who are yearning for education.”

Referring to Highter Education and Training Minister Naledi Pandor, Saphetha said the union was unhappy with her approach.

“We want ministers who are prepared to listen, and to resolve issues,” he said.