SADTU media statement on the march
22 April 2013
SADTU march is legal
It has come to our attention that the department of basic education is embarking on a futile exercise through various media platforms to mislead the country that our scheduled march on Wednesday, 24 April, 2013 is illegal and unprotected.
We can however confirm that the union has complied with all the provisions of the Gatherings Act of South Africa and has been granted permission to march by the relevant authorities in the city of Tshwane.
We can state without any fear of contradiction that the mass action of the 24th of April 2013 to the Union Buildings in Tshwane is legal. We want to assure our members that no one will be victimised for participating in this crucial action.
We want to state that it would assist the nation if the department of basic education can understand the difference between a strike and a march instead of embarking on a lying extravaganza out of desperation. These backward tactics are symptomatic of a department that is rapidly losing credibility and displaying no intention to deal with the real challenges confronting education. The department of basic education must stop bashing our constitutionally guaranteed right as workers to organise ourselves and demonstrate against their regressive tendencies.
This fruitless propaganda exercise will not achieve much other than to further poison the environment and undermine labour peace. We believe that it is a miscalculated tactic reminiscent of the pre democratic era in which intimation instead of working on finding solutions and providing some much needed leadership was the order of the day.
The department of basic education must not mislead the public by using terms that demonstrate desperation to suffocate the voice of the workers such as "unlawful march" and "unprotected strike". SADTU members in all the corners of the country will not be deterred nor intimidated by these threats from the employer; we are even more motivated to fight for our hard earned right to collective bargaining and the right of the African working class child to access quality public education.
Statement issued by SADTU, April 22 2013
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