DA submits application for teaching to be declared an essential service

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has submitted its application for teaching to be declared an essential service. The application has been submitted to the Essential Services Committee, which falls under the Committee for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration at the Department of Labour.

The Committee is required, when it receives such an application, to follow certain processes, including calling for public submissions and holding a public consultation process, in order to make up its mind. We will be participating in all these processes to ensure that our argument is heard.

Included in the documentation we have sent to the Committee is our argument for making this application. A summary of this argument is as follows:

The Labour Relations Act defines an essential service as a "service which, if interrupted, would endanger on inconvenience the life or the health of people". Teaching is not currently listed as an essential service under this act. The DA contests that, given the crisis that our education system is in and the significant, indeed life-altering, inconvenience that this causes for children, that teaching should be, at least until the system improves, declared an essential service. 

South African children receive one of the worst standards of education in the world; a fact confirmed by a variety of studies.

There are many reasons for this, but it is certain that nothing can be done to improve the situation without first having all teachers in their classrooms for all the hours that their contracts require them to be there.  

But this is not the case in South Africa. While not all absenteeism from the classroom is caused by strikes, strikes play a large role.

According to a study by Tokiso, an independent dispute resolution company, Sadtu, the single largest trade union representing teachers, was responsible for 42% of all workdays lost between 1995 and 2009. 

During this strike, action was not limited to simple absenteeism from the classroom, but involved the brutal disruption of whatever classes were going ahead. Actions included tearing up of exam papers following a memo from one trade union telling its workers to ensure that "no exams take place at any school".

The consequences of attempting to obtain an education in this environment do indeed, we believe, create enormous inconvenience to the lives of learners, as well as to their parents, and the teachers, principals and other role-players who are genuinely trying to learn create a positive learning environment.

While the DA does believe that the right to strike is a key component of a democratic state, it is also a right that can be limited in certain cases. It is limited, rightly, in the case of health and police workers. But the depth of the crisis facing education makes is important and necessary, we believe, to extend these limitations to teachers, until such time as the quality of education has improved significantly.

There are other mechanisms, including marches and demonstrations outside of schooling hours, that can be used by teachers to make their voices heard.

Statement issued by James Lorimer, MP, Democratic Alliance deputy shadow minister of basic education, February 15 2010

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