NEHAWU update on the state of government buildings and relocations
12 September 2018
The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union [NEHAWU] has been busy with processes to protect its members and workers from working in unsafe government buildings since the fire that broke out at the Bank of Lisbon Building in the Johannesburg CBD.
Last week we called on all our members to not go to work in unsafe buildings especially in the 8 buildings [Namely 30 Simmonds, 75 Fox, Perm Building, Thusanong Building, Corner House, Sage Building, ABSA building, and the Bank of Lisbon Building] which were deemed unsafe in the Johannesburg CBD and the Civitas building in Pretoria which houses the National Department of Health. Our members heeded our call and refrained from entering such premises.
Subsequently, due to pressure exerted by the national union, government started with relocation plans. However, government tried to process the relocations without any consultation with NEHAWU. We met with government on Monday night 10th September 2018 to vent our anger at the unilateral implantation of the relocations. The meeting agreed on a task team to work on the deployments of staff into temporary facilities. Six areas were identified where staff who perform critical core functions will be relocated to temporarily. This is to ensure that there is minimal disruptions to service delivery. This afternoon the national union and the employer will view two of those temporary sites at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Nursing College and the Ann Latsky College.
The national union will this afternoon write to the Premier of Gauteng, David Makhura, to ask him to appoint a team that will handle the issue of relocations. As NEHAWU, we believe that relocations should be handled centrally and not by individual government departments. We hope that government will move with speed to process the issue of relocations as it might have an adverse effect on the functioning of government services.