{"id":252150,"date":"2023-03-08T20:03:36","date_gmt":"2023-03-08T18:03:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/peoples-lives-are-not-our-responsibility-says-nehawu-leader\/"},"modified":"2023-03-08T20:03:36","modified_gmt":"2023-03-08T18:03:36","slug":"peoples-lives-are-not-our-responsibility-says-nehawu-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/peoples-lives-are-not-our-responsibility-says-nehawu-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"People\u2019s lives are \u201cnot our responsibility\u201d says NEHAWU leader"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Vincent%20Lali\/nehawukdh-vincentlali-202303080.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/peoples-lives-are-not-our-responsibility-says-nehawu-leader.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Striking workers outside Khayelitsha District Hospital on Wednesday. Photo: Vincent Lali<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Striking members of the National Education Health and Allied Workers Union (NEHAWU) protested across the country on Wednesday, with some strikers closing down hospitals, and disrupting health services and government offices.<\/li>\n<li>Some workers protested for a few hours then returned to work.<\/li>\n<li>Government considers the 2022 wage negotiations settled but NEHAWU and some other unions are still holding out for an increase of at least 10%.<\/li>\n<li>NEHAWU said it had been called back to the negotiating table tomorrow.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cYou have shown the power of the people by closing all the hospitals,\u201d National Education health and Allied Workers\u2019 Union Western Cape provincial secretary Baxolise Mali told striking NEHAWU members on Wednesday. \u201cThe employer says people are dying. It is not our responsibility to keep people\u2019s lives.\u201d<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"leave\" height=\"1\" id=\"gu_counter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/peoples-lives-are-not-our-responsibility-says-nehawu-leader.gif\" width=\"1\"><\/p>\n<p>Mali was speaking to strikers outside the Khayelitsha District Hospital in Cape Town, as NEHAWU members continued a wage strike which has disrupted hospitals and government offices across the country. The government considers the wage negotiations for 2022 to be settled but NEHAWU and several other unions are still demanding up to 12%.<\/p>\n<p>Police presence outside the hospital had kept protesters away, said hospital CEO David Binza. He said the situation was \u201cbetter than yesterday\u201d, when \u201cthings were bad\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Binza said services at the hospital had been severely affected by the strike on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Protesters had prevented people coming in and out of the hospital. Staff had ended up working 24 hours because there were not enough nurses to relieve them, and there was a shortage of nurses in childbirth wards. \u201cYesterday they prevented night staff from gaining access into the facility. It was mostly doctors that they allowed in. Doctors alone can\u2019t work properly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Today things had been better, he said, as the police had arrived early and kept protesters away from the hospital.<\/p>\n<p>Western Cape health spokesperson Mark van der Heever said shift changes at the hospital were being closely monitored after patients in critical condition had to be transferred to other hospitals such as Helderberg, Tygerberg, Mitchells Plain and Karl Bremer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn Tuesday night, 7 March, protesters disrupted services and blocked staff from entering Khayelitsha District Hospital until 11pm. The ongoing disruption has directly resulted in staff shortages as they are prevented from entering, backlogs building up and other operational challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said protests had been reported at Karl Bremer and Tygerberg hospitals, but services had not been disrupted.<\/p>\n<p>Mali said NEHAWU\u2019s intention was to \u201ccollapse the provision of government services\u201d to force the government to the negotiating table. \u201cOur tactics involve closing workplaces, to force workers to get out and switch off their computers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Home Affairs offices in Khayelitsha were closed. Disappointed, Luthando Tiso said he has been going to Khayelitsha Home Affairs to collect his ID since Monday. \u201cI can\u2019t get a job without an ID,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>In the city centre, the Home Affairs office in Barrack Street and the offices of the Department of Labour were closed and there was a strong police presence.<\/p>\n<p>One man said he had been to the Mitchells Plain Labour Department offices on Monday and Tuesday only to find them closed because of the strike, and had come to Cape Town hoping for help. \u201cI desperately need to claim from the Unemployment Insurance Fund. I lost my job in January. My rent and children\u2019s school fees are already behind,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"subheading\">Eastern Cape<\/h2>\n<p>In the Eastern Cape, Department of Health spokesperson Yonela Dekeda said hospitals were being run by skeleton staff.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe had an incident early in the morning where striking workers blocked the Cecilia Makiwane Hospital\u2019s entrance in East London. But police were called to remove them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dekeda said unions which were not supporting the strike action had raised concerns that their members were being intimidated and denied access to workplaces.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe do appreciate responsible shop stewards who have called their members to order, where necessary, and ensured that critical services continue and that our patients receive necessary care,\u201d she said. \u201cHowever, we take very seriously those employees who intimidate others, and cause services to be affected negatively.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAppropriate action will be taken in all such instances, and law enforcement agencies are being deployed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At Laetitia Bam Day Hospital in KwaNobuhle, Kariega, Eastern Cape deputy secretary of NEHAWU, Busiswa Stokwe told about 100 striking workers: \u201cWe know we will be attacked even in the community, accused of not caring for patients. But the same community when you are doing the work of ten people, whilst you are four, would insult you, saying you are lazy. We must put ourselves first.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A patient who did not want to give his name said he had arrived at 5am to have three teeth removed but had been ordered out by striking workers at 7am. \u201cThey came by car and on foot and sang in the corridors. We realized that we should go back home, with aching teeth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were about ten and have no money to remove teeth at a private doctor, who charges R350 per tooth,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Thamsanqa%20Mbovane\/nehawukariega-thamsanqambovane-20230308.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/peoples-lives-are-not-our-responsibility-says-nehawu-leader-1.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Strikers closed off roads near Laetitia Bam hospital in Kariega. Photo: Thamsanqa Mbovane<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"subheading\">Gauteng<\/h2>\n<p>In Tshwane, striking workers closed down the offices of the Department of Public Service and Administration, shouting and insulting some workers who were inside the offices.<\/p>\n<p>There was a stand-off between the striking workers and police, as the workers closed off Hamilton and Edmond Streets with huge stones and turned cars away. Police moved the workers away.<\/p>\n<p>Phumuzo Malahleni, a registry clerk at the Department of Agriculture, said his R12,000-a-month salary was too low to cope with the soaring cost of living. \u201cAs public servants we can\u2019t afford anything. Violence and going to the streets is the only language our government understands.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>NEHAWU Gauteng provincial chairperson Mzikayise Tshontshi told GroundUp that the battle for a wage increase was far from over.<\/p>\n<p>He said NEHAWU had been called to the Public Sector Bargaining Council on Thursday. \u201cOur negotiators will be there, but the rest of us will continue shutting down public services.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe believe our strike has been resoundingly successful. From Monday to today, the numbers have been growing. Tomorrow we want to intensify the strike,\u201d said Tshontshi.<\/p>\n<p>Addressing the crowd outside the department, Tshontshi called out those who were still at work.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are also aware of \u2018amagundwane\u2019 (rats). Some are sitting in cosy offices, and then when we win this battle they are going to be first in the queue because they think they deserve what we have fought for. There have always been traitors in every struggle; this is no different.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At Tembisa hospital, striking workers blocked the entrance with burning tyres and debris while chanting slogans. Calm was later restored.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Chris%20Gilili\/nehawutshwane-20230308.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/peoples-lives-are-not-our-responsibility-says-nehawu-leader-2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Striking NEHAWU members protested in the streets of Tshwane. Photo: Chris Gilili<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"subheading\">Free State<\/h2>\n<p>Free State health spokesperson Mondli Mvambi said the province had obtained an interdict on Wednesday morning to prevent strikers from disrupting services at hospitals and clinics. \u201cThe order does not stop the strike but stops acts of intimidation, violence, disruptions and instigating.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mvambi said hospitals hardest hit were National District Hospital, Universitas, Pelonomi and Medical Depot in Bloemfontein. \u201cThere were no nurses at work and patient care was seriously compromised.\u201d Mvambi said calm had been restored but services remained strained as nurses were still not at work.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt Manapo in QwaQwa they are not allowing nurses into the hospital. At Boitumelo in Kroonstad, picketers were singing at the gate but services are said to be continuing. At Pelonomi Hospital, nurses in ICU were forced out by the strikers.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"subheading\">North West<\/h2>\n<p>In the North West, services at least six hospitals were disrupted by the strike: Klerksdorp-Tshepong, Potchefstroom, Taung District, Moses Kotane, Ganyesa District, and Gelukspan. There were pickets outside several other clinics and hospitals.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"subheading\">Mpumalanga<\/h2>\n<p>In Mpumalanga, spokesperson Christopher Nobela said that all health facilities had been affected and hospitals were working with skeleton staff in hospitals.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"subheading\">Limpopo<\/h2>\n<p>Limpopo health spokesperson Neil Shikwambana said, \u201cWe do not have reports of disruptions in any of our facilities so far.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"subheading\">KwaZulu-Natal<\/h2>\n<p>Workers stopped work at Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital in Durban for several hours on Wednesday morning, singing outside the hospital. Patients were allowed to enter.<\/p>\n<p>NEHAWU branch secretary Sikhumbuzo Gumbi said workers decided to go back to work at midday so they could assist patients. \u201cAs workers we decided to protest in the morning then attend to patients around lunchtime.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gumbi said the staff would continue protesting in the mornings until the strike ends.<\/p>\n<p>Prince Mthalane, Durban NEHAWU regional secretary, said clinics had been closed in KwaMashu and at Polyclinic workers had burned tyres. Police had been called but workers had talked to them and no-one had been arrested.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe aim is to have a peaceful strike,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>GroundUp was unable to reach the health department spokespersons in KwaZulu-Natal or the Northern Cape.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"subheading\">Police<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cInnocent patients have been caught in the crossfire and inconvenienced by something which has nothing to do with them,\u201d said Department of Health national spokesperson Foster Mohale. He said the Minister of Health had asked the Minister of Police to strengthen the police presence in areas affected by the strike.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSkeleton staff has also been available to give care to patients who could not be discharged,\u201d said Mohale.<\/p>\n<p>South African Police Union spokesperson Lesiba Thobakgale said the union had joined NEHAWU in the protest. \u201cAs SAPU, from today we have served a strike notice and we are joining the other unions,\u201d said Thobakgale.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"article_copyright\">\n<p>\u00a9 2023 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.<\/p>\n<p>We put an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We do not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We do not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, <b>not tracking<\/b> users. If you republish, please do not delete the invisible pixel.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/peoples-lives-are-not-our-responsibility-says-nehawu-leader.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Striking workers outside Khayelitsha District Hospital on Wednesday. Photo: Vincent Lali Striking members of the National Education Health and Allied Workers Union (NEHAWU) protested across the country on Wednesday, with some strikers closing down hospitals, and disrupting health services and government offices. Some workers protested for a few hours then returned to work. Government considers [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":252151,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928,3247],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-252150","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"category-news","9":"tag-groundup","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/peoples-lives-are-not-our-responsibility-says-nehawu-leader.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}