Striking parliamentary staff on Thursday resumed their protest over employment conditions for a fourth day despite an interim labour court interdict declaring the stoppage illegal.
The branch chairman of the National Eduction, Health and Allied Workers’ Union said it had no intention of heeding the interdict because it was obtained in bad faith.
“We learnt about it in the media and we are not concerned about it. We are not going to respect it because anyway it was obtained in bad faith,” Sthembiso Tembe told ANA as hundreds of workers kept up their noisy protest inside the parliamentary precinct.
Tembe said the management of the legislature went to court after Nehawu pointed out that an interdict from 2010, which Secretary of Parliament Gengezi Mgidlana had invoked earlier this week, was no longer valid.
He added that a meeting between union leaders and Mgidlana had delivered “nothing tangible” but that a follow-up meeting was scheduled for Thursday morning.
“We will see if that delivers anything in terms of meeting our demands,” he said.
Staff are demanding better salaries and pension benefits, plus an end to outsourcing of services and the process of reviewing security clearance of all who work at Parliament.
On Wednesday, after police fired stun grenades to disperse protesters and hand-cuffed two, Mgidlana told the media that Speaker Baleka Mbete had called the police in because protesters had disrupted at least four portfolio committee meetings and by law the business of the legislature constituted an essential service which may not be jeopardised.
-African News Agency
