Lab worker strike set to hobble hospitals
Threat of 20 000 joining pay fight and ‘closing’ Health Department, writes Mervyn Naidoo
PRIMARY health care at state hospitals and clinics countrywide will be hit if 5 400 laboratory workers go on strike as planned this week.
The workers are in a wage dispute with the National Health Laboratory Service.
The service last offered a 6.5 percent increase, to phase in over 20 months. Unions want the full effect, dated from April.
The workers’ main function is to analyse the blood samples of thousands of patients who consult medical staff at state health-care facilities every day.
TB, HIV and cancer testing are common tests they do.
The service is a parastatal with most of the workers aligned either to the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) or the Public Servants Association (PSA).
The unions say the service fuelled tension by issuing dismissal letters to shop stewards at various state facilities around the country on Friday.
In response, Nehawu spokesman Sizwe Phamla threatened to cripple health care in the country by getting 20 000 union members, all Department of Health workers, to join the strike.
“They have challenged us and we will respond by closing down the Department of Health,” Phamla warned.
Negotiations for the pay increase began in February with the service offering a 4.8 percent increase and the unions jointly asking for 10 percent.
Further negotiations took place – until the service offered a 6.5 percent increase over a drawn-out period, which the unions opposed.
Nehawu called for the strike when a conciliation process – which included the PSA, facili- tated by the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration – failed to resolve the impasse in July.
Nehawu initially signalled an intention to strike in a written notice on August 7.
But the service succeeded in obtaining an urgent high court order to block the strike.
The order was granted in favour of the service because Nehawu had not given the required seven days’ notice.
Nehawu then announced in a new notice, it would resort to striking on August 20.
Phamla said they were finalising plans for the coming strike following the collapse of the wage negotiations.
“Our members are deeply aggrieved by the mismanagement of this year’s wage negotiations.
“Delaying tactics have been used by the service since February,” said Phamla.
A worker, who did not want to be named, said laboratory workers were “discouraged and demoralised” by the salary negotiations – a perennial problem.
“Primary health care will be adversely affected if we go on strike because doctors and nurses rely on test results to provide treatment for patients.
“We realise we provide an essential service and our strike action will have huge consequences, but we have been exploited by our employer for too long,” the worker said.
The PSA has also indicated its members will join the planned nationwide strike on Thursday.
Claude Naiker, PSA’s head in KZN, said they would persist with the strike until their demands were met.
He did not accept the claim that there were not enough funds to implement the pay increase immediately.
Naiker claimed the management tried to “bully” staff, especially at Inkosi Albert Luthuli Hospital, into accepting the proposed offer.
Of the service’s dismissal of some employees on Friday, Naiker said: “We are perturbed by the intimidating tactics used against members.
“We will do everything in our power to ensure that our members who have been dismissed as a result of participating in the recent industrial action will be protected.”
But the service is not fretting over the planned strike.
“We have proposed a dispute settlement meeting with labour tomorrow.
“We are sure we will reach a consensus in this meeting, so the strike would be inappropriate,” said the service’s communications manager, Ntokozi Majozi.
Majozi could not say why some staff had been dismissed on Friday.
Of the alleged bullying of Albert Luthuli staff, Majozi said: “The NHLS has internal processes that employees need to follow if they are unhappy in the workplace.”