NEHAWU DEMANDS THE IMMEDIATE SUSPENSION OF IVOR BLUMENTHAL, CEO OF THE SERVICES SETA

NEHAWU is angered and disgusted by the harassment, victimization and the selective targeting of its members by the management at Services SETA and demands an immediate investigation and the intervention of the Minister of Labour and of Higher Education and Training. The union vows to fight the racist, anti unionist and anti transformation tendencies that are prevalent at the Services SETA.

The Mafia style management of the Services SETA under the stewardship of Ivor Blumenthal is not acceptable and will be totally opposed by the union. The Seta has been run like a personal fiefdom by a cabal of individuals who are using bribery, cronyism, and intimidation to instill fear to employees.

NEHAWU is planning to challenge this harassment of its members by the management who over the last few years have used restructuring as a tactic to kick out a number of black workers especially those who are close to the union. The union also believes that managers who preside over these institutions that fail to implement transformation have to account for their failures. We therefore demand that the CEO, Ivor Blumenthal, HR Director, TJ van der Merwe and HR Manager, Bonita Brider be suspended while the investigation takes place. This precautionary suspension is necessitated by the high probability by all of them to interfere with the objects of investigation including witnesses under their supervision at work.

We demand that an investigation be conducted to investigate the following issues:

• Investigation to the yearly restructuring programme at the SETA that has resulted in a number of black employees being made redundant and then replaced by white workers. We want to know what informed the process of restructuring because there were no economic or operational reasons given for it.
• Why it is that 3 black employees were placed on paid leave and then 6 inexperienced white workers were elevated to fill their positions and a black female manager was replaced by an inexperienced white male colleague who was subsequently replaced by a white female employee.
• We also want an investigation to the allegations that the management violated recruitment processes by failing to publicly and internally advertise vacant posts which were subsequently filled by white employees.
• We want to know why the Services SETA still refuses to recognize the union {NEHAWU} as the rightful and legal representative of its members in the workplace even after the union had proved that it is sufficiently representative as per the Labour Relations Act {LRA}.
• We want to know why managers at the SETA fail to use the Performance Management System when they evaluate the performance of members but use the feelings of the CEO. Some of our members claim that they were offered severance packages by their superiors who said the reasons for the offer was that the CEO felt they did not fit in with the organization. These members were told to accept the offer or face dismissal.
• We also demand an investigation on Salary discrepancies between black and white employees.
• We want to know why the Human Resources Manager was encouraging employees to join a proposed workers forum that was to be formed by the management when employees had already exercised their democratic right to join a trade union of their choice.
• We also demand an investigation into the practice of consistently outsourcing various functions to one service provider, resulting in a loss of jobs.
• We demand that the CEO, Ivor Blumenthal, explains his statement that was directed to workers especially those who wanted to join the union that he knew where their children went to school. This to us is nothing more than an intimidation tactic of the apartheid era to scare workers and coerce them into submission and has got no place in the new South Africa.

These bullying tactics will not break the resolve of the workers to fight for their rights and to demand equal treatment of all workers. NEHAWU as a progressive union is going to take this fight with all the might of the working class to emancipate these workers from the shackles of oppression.

Statement issued by Sizwe Pamla, NEHAWU Media Liaison Officer, September 15 2009

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