Firefighters burn with anger
Pregnant women enraged that they no longer get allowances
CAPE Town’s women firefighters say they are being forced to lie and cheat to keep their allowances when pregnant. Losing these allowances, they say, means they cannot make ends meet at month-end.
This emerged at a meeting on Friday when women firefighters in the city objected to losing their extra payments while they are pregnant.
Their union, the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu), said the City of Cape Town was discriminating against women and children at a time when they were at their most vulnerable.
But the city’s director of safety and security, Richard Bosman, said it would be illegal to use pregnant firefighters.
He said that they would not be able to perform the work they normally did — such as putting out fires, performing rescues and attending to accidents.
Doing so, said Bosman, would endanger their health and that of their foetuses.
“The city would also be in breach of the Occupational Health and Safety Act and irresponsible if it endangered the lives of pregnant firefighters,” he said.
But union shop steward Archie Hearne wanted to know why pregnant firefighters could
Why can’t they be deployed elsewhere in the department?
not be deployed elsewhere in the department without losing their allowances.
“Pregnant women could be sent on development and management courses or training during this period,” said Hearne. “Why discriminate against pregnant women?”
The city decided to withdraw the allowances for pregnant firefighters because they are deemed “nonoperational”.
André Adams, Samwu’s provincial secretary in the Western Cape, addressed about 100 women firefighters at a meeting in Athlone on Friday to discuss the dispute, which it has now lodged with the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration.
Hearne said that the allowances made up more than 22% of a firefighter’s monthly salary.
“For a woman to lose this amount of money when she is pregnant is insane and blatantly unfair, because it does not happen to their male counterparts,” he said.
Hearne said this was not common practice either in South Africa or the rest of the world.
“The city started implementing this policy last year and not only did they decide that every woman who falls pregnant now forfeits their benefits, but they have now started ‘recovering’ allowances paid to these women in the past.”
At the meeting in Athlone, several women shared their ex- periences. They asked that their names not be published.
One woman had two children — one in 2008 and the other in 2010. Her allowances were not deducted, but last November she had a shock when she received her salary. Most of her salary had gone, including her bonus and overtime pay.
When she inquired about what she though was a mistake, she was told that she still owed the city more than R20 000. She was forced to sign a contract that deducted this amount in monthly instalments.
Another woman lost all her furniture — and nearly her home — when the allowances ceased. Others talked of how they had bound their growing stomachs to stop their pregnancies from showing.
One firefighter cheated to avoid losing her money for as long as possible.
“I fell pregnant but hid it from my manager. I was told to go to the doctor and asked a male friend for a sample of his urine. This way I escaped detection for six months,” she said.
“I know what I did was not right, but I am the only breadwinner in my family.”