Strike at Parliament descends into violent chaos

POLICE in riot gear fired stun grenades at striking parliamentary workers as a threeday-old protest around working conditions descended into chaos yesterday.

Police closed the gates outside the Old Assembly wing and forcibly removed protesters from the steps amid clouds of smoke from the stun grenades.

Police then moved to force protesters out of the parliamentary precinct altogether.

As several protesters were handcuffed and led away by police, others chanted “Police must go”.

According to police, no arrests had been made during the chaos and no one had been charged.

The police action was condemned by the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu), which is leading the protests for better working conditions for workers at Parliament.

Sthembiso Tembe, chairman of the parliamentary branch of Nehawu, said the police’s response had been brutal, was “not fit for a democratic parliament” and had been the “apartheid way of doing things”.

Cosatu provincial secretary Tony Ehrenreich condemned the sending in of members of the Public Order Policing Unit to break up the protest.

“It’s unacceptable that these heavy-handed tactics are used against union members and employees of Parliament.

“A solution must be found through negotiations, and outdated interdicts can’t be used to stop people from exercising their right to protest,” he said.

Ehrenreich was referring to a 2010 interdict against workers protesting inside the parliamentary precinct.

Scores of striking parliamentary staff had earlier barged into a meeting of Parliament’s portfolio committee on police, effectively stopping the work of MPs forced to vacate the Good Hope chamber.

Workers are demanding bet- ter pay and pension benefits, an end to outsourcing of services at the legislature, and for Parliament to abandon the controversial process of re-vetting all staff for security purposes.

Tembe had earlier vowed that “no parliamentary committee is going to sit till our demands are met”.

Parliament had on Tuesday evening taken recourse to an interdict dating back to 2010 to prevent striking staff from disrupting the work of the legislature. – ANA

FACE OFF: Chaos erupted at Parliament yesterday after riot police were deployed to remove protesting Nehawu members from the parliamentary precinct. Stun grenades and pepper spray were used to disperse the crowd, which earlier faced off with police...