PARLIAMENT, November 11 (ANA) – Police in riot gear fired stun grenades at striking Parliamentary workers as a three-day old protest around working conditions descended into chaos on Wednesday.
Police closed the gates of the Old Assembly wing and forcibly removed protesters from steps amid clouds of smoke from the stun grenades.
Police then moved to force protesters from the steps of the Old Assembly and out of the Parliamentary precinct altogether. As several protestors were handcuffed and led away by police, others chanted “Police must go”.
According to police no arrests had been made during the chaos which broke out at around lunchtime.
“I want to make it clear that no arrests were made and no one was charged,” said the police’s Colonel Lucas, talking to members of parliament as workers protested.
Lucas, the United Democratic Movement (UDM) and the Democratic Alliance (DA) had begun discussing the release of workers who were reportedly arrested. However, it emerged that some workers had been taken to the parliamentary police office but had not been charged.
One of the workers who had earlier been removed by riot police, parliament researcher Sonwabile Ngxiza, returned to the main group of protesting workers after being held for about an hour.
“I was not hurt, there was no major injuries,” said a smiling Ngxiza, who was greeted with applause from workers.
“The workers’ struggle is the main thing, we are all fighting for a living wage.”
The police action was condemned by the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) which is leading the protests for better working conditions at Parliament.
Sthembiso Tembe, chairman of the parliamentary branch of Nehawu, said the police response had been brutal and said it was “not fit for a democratic parliament” and had been the “apartheid way of doing things?
The Congress of South African Trade Unions also condemned the actions of Parliament in sending in members of the public order policing unit to break up the protest by striking staff.
“It’s unacceptable that these hardhanded tactics are used against union members and employees of Parliament,” said Cosatu Western Cape secretary Tony Ehrenreich, who arrived outside the gates of the legislature to support Nehawu workers.
“A solution must be found through negotiations and outdated interdicts can’t be used to stop people from exercising their right to protest.”
Ehrenreich was referring to a 2010 interdict against workers protesting inside the parliamentary precinct which Parliament is enforcing.
The group of protestors eventually made its way to Parliament’s exit, seemingly ending the day’s main protest action. Riot police, on the other side of Parliament, remained, cordoning off thoroughfare to the National Assembly, although their numbers had lessened from earlier in the day.
Scores of striking parliamentary staff had earlier barged into a meeting of the legislature’s portfolio committee on police, effectively stopping the work of MPs.
MPs were forced to vacate the Good Hope chamber, the building adjacent to the President’s Tuynhuys office, when the workers from Nehawu entered.
Workers are demanding better pay and pension benefits, an end to outsourcing of services at the legislature, and for Parliament to abandon the controversial process of re-vetting all staff for security purposes.
Tembe had earlier vowed that “no Parliamentary committee is going to sit up till our demands are met”.
“This is about working conditions, about better conditions,” said Tembe.
On Tuesday evening, Parliament had taken recourse to an interdict dating back to 2010 to prevent striking staff from disrupting the work of the legislature.
Briefing journalists on the ongoing strike by hundreds of support staff, secretary to Parliament Gengezi Mgidlana said the interdict, which prevents workers from picketing and protesting on the premises of the legislature, was still in effect five years later.
On Wednesday morning though, Tembe informed striking workers that they had received an interdict, but vowed not to respect it.
The strikers brandished placards reading “Mgidlana must fall” and roared with anger when they spotted Parliament’s acting chief of security Deon van der Spuy. They brushed past riot police and emptied bottles of water on Van der Spuy’s retreating figure, drenching him.
He declined to comment.
Mgidlana had said on Tuesday that while negotiations with the union would continue, Parliament would not allow any disruptions to its work.
“You can’t stop people from doing their work. You can’t stop the work of Parliament. Those issues really are non-negotiable,” he said.
Police confirmed to ANA that they had received instructions to clear the protesters from the precinct, but later appeared to change their mind.
Hundreds continued to chant and toyi-toyi at lunchtime. ANC deputy chief whip Doris Dlakude’s attempt to address them failed.
She had walked up to the protesters with a loudhailer asking for them to give her a chance to negotiate for the release of their colleagues.
But they shouted her down, demanding: “Who sent the police?”
– African News Agency (ANA)
