SADTU MEDIA STATEMENT ON SAPSU
SADTU condemns Sapsu’s attack on COSATU Public Service Unions wage agreement
22 May 2015
The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU) strongly condemns the so called South African public service union's (Sapsu) anarchist view on the public service wage negotiation deal signed by COSATU Public Service Unions this week. Sapsu's Thobile Ntola’s rant and rave does not come as a surprise to us. His myopic view that public sector workers have been sold out is pure baseless drivel driven by his utter contempt for the ANC and its Alliance partners.
He is consumed by anger and bitterness due to his disgraceful exit from SADTU and the Federation.
He will always be remembered as a corrupt leader who uses rhetoric to garner support and sympathy.
Accusing our leaders of selling-out and describing them as greedy, embedded in the pockets and dependent on survival on political patronage and sleeping in bed with the ANC, is laughable.
How would Ntola describe his partner-in-crime Irvin Jim who went all the way to Nkandla, cup in hand, to beg for the Deputy Presidency position from President Zuma.
Ntola’s bitterness is poisoning his mind and causing him to lose perspective. He boasts of NUMSA’S gains in the private sector but the two are not comparable. NUMSA is in the private sector while the Public Sector Unions are dealing with government.
To suggest that we blindly signed an un-mandated agreement is malicious. SADTU has been sending updates to members regularly and members were taken on board thorough short message system. The negotiations process took tough eight months and was also marked by marches countrywide and in Pretoria.
It was only after the our members’ actions that the employer, revisited its paltry 4,8% to 7%. We never bull-dozed the independent unions into signing, they did so in their own free will. If they were opposed to the offer, why didn’t they march with us to Pretoria? Since when has he become their spokesperson?
Who is Ntola to tell our workers what to accept or not? He is supposed to be in class teaching learners but is all over the country building his union while receiving government salary. To him that is a “revolutionary task”. This populist cheque-collector is fooling himself because teachers know that he lives in a R3,5m house for free since 2010. He lied about having been allowed to live in that house because he had security threats whilst hiding his capitalist taste. To him that is "revolutionary task". Why is the department charging and dismissing our members for absenteeism from school when this corrupt populist has never been in class since June 2014 to date? Why is he not charged for absconding? He can only do that in the Eastern Cape education department because he is running it through proxy anarchists and hooligans who came to march to our head office.
In 2012, while he was still the leader of SADTU, the public sector unions signed a 7% wage deal when the inflation was at 6,3%. Where was this self-appointed revolutionary then? Was he selling out the workers? Our teachers and all the public servants know him as an anarchist and populist who thinks screaming working class makes him a hero. He has no credibility and no member must even listen to verbal diarrhea.
We have signed the 7% deal when the inflation is at 4,1%.
The Federation will always hold the interests of the working class at heart. No amount of seduction of workers will change our member’s views towards him. SADTU wants to be clear that COSATU unions will never betray their members.
We are mandated to serve in that structure and represent the interests of our members not our own. We know what our members are saying in this context and maybe we should advice Ntola that we are not like him because of his obsession with materialism led him to compromise workers interest. It is his love for extravagant consumerism and wealth accumulation that brought his downfall, which ultimately led to his expulsion. As a business Unionist, he received kickbacks from service providers to quench his uncontrollable lavish lifestyle. He remains a lion in a sheep skin, and his recent attack is nothing but a desperate attempt for public sympathy by a desperate man. People like him belong to a political dustbin.
Like his ilk, they have developed a hallucinating belief that they alone have capacity in some manner to declare themselves as the voice of reason. Their brand of politics is dangerous for a democratic country. He thinks to be revolutionary is to criticize the Federation’s work. The working class should beware of high level of opportunism which is taking place at the expense of the hard work we have done. It has become fashionable for people like him to use COSATU’s name in their gatherings to profile themselves.
The workers’ struggle is supposed to be led by leaders with best interest of the workers at heart, not fame obsessed people. We encourage workers to rise against these propagandists who are hell bent in destroying the gains of the workers.
Statement issued by SADTU, May 22 2015
