Gauteng health unions to march to the Premier and Gauteng health offices this Friday  

15 March 2018

Friday’s march is first warning shot…

After the lengthy sit in the office of the health MEC the five unions, namely DENOSA, NEHAWU, PSA, HOSPERSA and NUPSAW, finally got the opportunity to hold long discussions with her yesterday around the outstanding performance bonuses for 2016/17 and 2017/18 financial years ending this month-end.

Unfortunately, after long discussions it became clear that we can't find each other on both items. The employer maintained that they don't have money to pay both and the decision no longer lies with the health department but with the Gauteng government led by the Premier.

Put simply, the employer is adamant that they are not going to pay PMDS for last year and this year.

As unions we condemn this stance taken by the employer and view it as an attack to collective bargaining agreement and exploitation of workers. 

The department of health finds itself in this financial mess because of corruption and mismanagement of funds and yet no heads are rolling and it is workers on the ground who are made to pay the price.

As a result of this, as the unions we will fire the first warning shot on Friday 16 March 2018 as we have agreed as organised labour to take to the streets this Friday (16/03/18) when we will be visiting the offices of the Premier and Gauteng Health to handover our memorandums of demand.

We are still discussing the possibility of marching to the ANC offices as the ruling party in the province to give direction to its deployees and its government to stop exploiting workers. If there's no movement after our first shot, we will do a total shutdown of the health system in the province. 

We therefore call on all workers to come out in their numbers this Friday and take the employer head on to address our demands.

Issued by Sibongiseni Delihlazo, Communications Manager, DENOSA, 15 March 2018