NEHAWU STATEMENT ON THE OUTCOMES OF THE NORTH WEST SHOPSTEWARDS COUNCIL
Tuesday May 8, 2018
The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union [NEHAWU] convened a shopstewards council yesterday to make concrete assessment of the current strike at both the Department of Social Development and the Department of Health in the North West Province.
The strike at social development has been ongoing for the past four months and at the health department it has been ongoing for the past three months. Both strike actions have been unnecessarily protracted due to the sheer arrogance and intransigence of the provincial government. Their unwillingness to concede to workers’ demands have left the public without services and further pushed both departments to a total state of disarray. It has been proven beyond reasonable doubt that the provincial government does not care about the people they are tasked to look after. Our people are being let down by the very same government they have voted in.
Throughout the strike action we have continuously availed ourselves and made means to find common ground with the employer. Instead of engaging us with a view to end the impasse the employer has consistently elected to address us through the media. This further infuriated workers who viewed this as an insult and a total disregard for their genuine and reasonable demands.
We welcome the intervention by national government including the invoking of section 100 of the constitution to put both treasury and the health department under administration and the appointment of the interministerial team. We applaud the President of the Republic for prioritising our issues while the provincial government chose to peddle lies about the current crisis that is currently engulfing the province.