Row brewing over unions’ removal from bargaining council
SA Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) affiliates have threatened to launch a legal battle after they were removed from the Public Health and Social Development Sectoral Bargaining Council following an audit report which said they did not qualify to be part of the council.
The Saftu unions, including its biggest affiliate in the council, the National Union of Public Service and Allied Workers (Nupsaw), are among a number of other trade unions from other federations who have been fingered for allegedly misrepresenting their membership, which allowed them to receive more money from the council.
This was revealed by an independent audit report conducted by Kreston audit firm and released earlier this month.
Unions are required to submit their audited membership at the end of every financial year to the bargaining council, which must be further audited by council auditors.
The report could see all Saftu unions being kicked out of the council as their real combined membership has been exposed to be not meeting the 30 000 minimum threshold for participating in the council.
Nupsaw general secretary Success Mataitsane said the report, which said 3 250 of its 27 025 members were unaccounted for, was biased and was aimed at removing Saftu unions.
Mataitsane said most of the unaccounted for members were community healthcare workers who were being paid through a private service provider and not the Persal system used for the public service.
“The Gauteng Department of Health has outsourced the payroll of their community health workers. Some of our members are on that payroll (smart purse). We submitted that payroll to say here is the payroll which won’t be on Persal. We have over 3 000 members who are community health workers,” Mataitsane said.
“This is a grand plan to get rid of Saftu affiliates. We have been anticipating it from last year. There is a plan we have put in place to fight this. We may take that report directly to arbitration. That report will not stand the test of time once it gets to arbitration or before any court,” Mataitsane added.
Most of the unions, including Cosatu’s Denosa, did not respond to questions.
In terms of discrepancies between members submitted by unions and membership verified through the National Treasury, the Public Servants Association has recorded the most unaccounted for membership figures among the 10 affected unions, at 9 279.
Of the 77 892 members submitted by the PSA to the council as of December 31, 2017, only 68 613 could be verified by the Persal report submitted by the Treasury.
According to the report, the union denied inflating its membership and instead said deductions from its members were being cancelled where no cancellation letter had been received by the union and that some members took leave without pay as some of the reasons they could not account for their stated membership.
Yesterday, PSA deputy general manager Tahir Maepa confirmed that despite the union drawing money from the council based on its submitted membership, not all of them were paid up members.
Maepa said many of the unaccounted for members from the union had their subscription cancelled, but not in line with the Labour Relations Act.