The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) said it welcomes the order of the Labour Court directing Rand Mutual Assurance (RMA) to refund its members for the unlawful deductions made on salaries at the instance of the “pseudo trade union”, Educators Union of South Africa (Eusa).
Sadtu which held its 10th national congress, said Eusa and RMA caused the unlawful deductions purportedly for an insurance policy without the written consent of the affected employees. The union launched an urgent application for an order to declare the deductions unlawful and to ensure that the affected members are refunded their money with interest.
“Sadtu will now pursue the matter further through the Financial Sector Conduct Authority and the Registrar of Trade Unions as well as law enforcement authorities to ensure the full accountability of those involved. Rand Mutual Assurance admitted that it processed the deductions without any verification,” said spokesperson Nomusa Cembi.
“This admission at the least demonstrates gross negligence, non-adherence to the Code of Conduct and the insatiable greed to make money at all costs,” she added. “Eusa, which has failed to secure organisational rights, has resorted to a nefarious scheme such as this one and unlawfully accessed personal information of the affected persons to create a database which it submitted to Rand Mutual Bank”.
Cembi said the National Treasury must now fully investigate how this illegality occurred under its watch and whether its officials were not complicit in “this unlawful act which had the potential to cause unprecedented chaos in the public service”.
“Sadtu, once more, implores members to be vigilant of schemes such as this one designed to siphon money from their salaries and report same immediately,” Cembi said.
However, Eusa said they did not issue a system reacting to Sadtu, in order to avoid to “dignifying lies”.
“The court has scratched or removed the case from its roll. Sadtu is saying things that the court did not pronounce on. The court never said the members should be refunded. RMA decided that it will refund members whose salaries were deducted before the court,” said Eusa general secretary Siphiwe Mpungose.
Mpungose, speaking with “Saturday Star” on Friday, said the union must address the issue of its KwaZulu Natal secretary, he said the issue has “clouds hanging over their heads”.
“Sadtu is shying away from coming out clean with the KZN secretary on how she got a teacher post while she only had a matric certificate, without a diploma or degree. We are still investigating who put Sadtu members in the list,” said Mpungose.
The congress entered its third day on Friday, with almost 2 000 delegates fully engaged in various commissions in Birchwood Conference, Ekurhuleni. Today (Saturday) the event is closing.
During the week, delivering the SACP message to the congress, general secretary Solly Mapaila congratulated Dr Mugwena Maluleke for his election as president of Teachers International.
“We are looking forward to this congress discussing a response to the capture of our policy space by neo-liberal forces and to the capture of public entities and the delivery of public goods and services by profit-driven private players. Neo-liberalism has attacked and continues to attack State participation in the economy. Neo-liberal policy reforms seek to replace state participation in the economy with private sector competition for maximum profits,” said Mapaila.
He said the working class had been deeply affected by neo-liberal policies, including attacks on collective bargaining, and by unilateral neo-liberal restructuring of the workplace, “with labour brokers, no workplace benefits etc”.
“Because of this, among others, increasing numbers of working-class members have stayed away from voting, resulting in the fall we have seen in voter turnout. Others have shifted their votes away amid internal divisions, factionalism and related splits,” said Mapaila.
Cosatu president Zingiswa Losi said: “We must however reject the call by any politician that will send a single teacher into the unemployment queue. The calls by Sadtu and Cosatu to stop the possible retrenchment of a single contract teacher must be won. We dare not fail in this demand.
“We have requested an urgent meeting with the Minister for Finance. A solution must be found but it cannot be at the expense of the education of our learners,” Losi added.
Saturday Star
ntmbi.nkosi@inl.co.za