Finally: Back pay for schools support staff
MBABANE – The wait is over!
For close to a year, some support staff in schools have been going to work but not getting paid. This was because government had not released free primary education (FPE) grants.
However, most schools have since been paid by government, meaning they will now be in a position to pay outstanding salaries for their support staff.
While this has called for celebration by many, others say they will spend the money on settling loans with micro-lenders.
Following the payment of FPE grants last week, most schools will be paying outstanding salaries for the support staff employees, while others have already been paid. Despite that the workers will be receiving back pay, since their last salary was paid last year in June, they are unhappy because they will be repaying money lenders. For the past 11 months without a salary, some support staff members have been surviving through money lenders and their loans have attracted high interests.
In an interview with some support staff members, who preferred to remain anonymous in fear of victimisation in their respective schools, they stated that due to the hardships they faced when their salaries were not paid in over 10 months, they were forced to borrow from money lenders. Some of the workers said they were evicted by their landlords for owing rent.
The workers mentioned that they had to borrow money to pay for their children’s school fees, among other things, and also take care of their daily needs, including bus fare to work, their children’s fares to school and also put food on the table for their families, as some of them were breadwinners.
“Our woes are not over. Some of us will be forced to go back to the shylocks in order to manage the situation,” the workers said.
Meanwhile, they added that the uncertainty over the payment of their salaries affected their budgeting. They said if their salaries were paid on a fixed date, they would manage the situation better.
Protective
Another thorny issue raised by the support staff was the issue of protective gear for groundsmen and cooks in the various schools. Also they said their provident fund contributions were inconsistent, as they were unable to pay them when the salary had been stopped. “Some schools make contributions despite the salary inconsistency,” said some of the support staff workers. When reached for comment, the National Domestic and Support Staff Workers Coordinator, Phumelele Zulu, stated that they had always been recommending for government to place them under her payroll.
Zulu said government had been against the idea, stating that they could not create new posts. However, Zulu mentioned that they were also not of the idea of creating new posts, but wanted government to create a pool where all monies paid to school including support staff wages would be put into one account. This, she said would help schools that had low enrolment to cope. According to Zulu, monies paid to schools with low enrolment was not sufficient to cater for support staff salaries for the whole year. “There are some other schools that had huge enrolments and monies paid were enough such that there was a balance left over.” She said the balance could assist those schools with lower enrolments.
Zulu mentioned that Convention 189 that addressed decent work for all could be addressed when the pool is created, as the support workers would manage to have a salary. Currently, she said the situation was unhealthy as the workers went for months without a salary, resulting to depression among other things. Zulu said the country talked about decent work but did not lead by example when there were people who went without a salary for months. She stated that the issue of decent work included competitive salaries paid on time.
Meanwhile, the Principal Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Education and Training, Bheki Gama, said the recommendation by the support staff was difficult to implement, however, the ministry would consider plans on how they could give schools more power to control their budget. This, he said, was among their long-term plan.