SADTU statement on DA's intended visit to our headquarters

20 June 2018

As the news continue to circulate that the DA will barge into SADTU offices tomorrow (21 June, 2018) to challenge the Union to support the call to make school staff an essential service, SADTU wants to make it clear -  we are not going to waste our time and energy entertaining the publicity seeking DA.

The DA has the audacity to circulate to the media its intended visit to our offices without giving us notice of this meeting.

We are not the DA’s lackey but a fully fledged organisation representing the majority of workers in the education sector, we need to be treated with respect.

We know the DA as a party of bosses/employers; they hate unions and workers. They hate, with passion, collective bargaining and all the hard earned rights of workers.

Their intended visit has nothing to do with education but a cheap political electioneering stunt. Who is the DA to lobby us? If they have anything to say on schooling being an essential service, let them make their submission to the Department of Labour like all interested stakeholders.

SADTU’s view on the essentialisation of education is well known and it is in line with the prescripts of the Labour Relations Act, the country’s Constitution and the International Labour Organisation (ILO). We are going to make our views known  further before the Department of Labour which have invited the public to make representations and not to the DA.

Not that we are scared of engaging in debates about our stance, we don't want to waste our energy on publicity seeking mongers like the DA.

We don’t expect the DA to trespass on our property. SADTU Village belongs to SADTU and it is private property.

Issued by Nomusa Cembi, Media Officer, SADTU, 20 June 2018