SAPS IS NOT A BARGAINING CHAMBER FOR WAGE NEGOTIATIONS12 August 2010
1. The NATIONAL OF METALWORKERS OF SOUTH AFRICA (Numsa) calls on Minister of Police Nathi Mthethwa and National Commissioner General Bheki Cele to publicly reproach SAPS personnel for forcefully intimidating and abusing their duty against striking Numsa members at Port Elizabeth.
2. The SAPS personnel have forcefully denied striking members of Numsa to gather and picket at Eastern Cape Training Centre (ECTC), where wage negotiations are currently underway between Numsa and the employers’ representative body AMEO. We strongly believe that workers have a right to assemble and gather anywhere as guaranteed by the constitution of our country. Therefore police have no right to forcefully disperse and deny workers their constitutional right to gather as part of exerting pressure to the employer to accede to their demands.
3. This barbaric and childish conduct by SAPS personnel is a clear demonstration that police in our country are an extension of the class instruments that seeks to undermine the rights of workers and the poor in the interests of defending the individualistic Capitalist interests of the ruling class, particularly AMEO.
It is our considered view that police have no role or obligation to mitigate over industrial disputes, but their role is to protect the most vulnerable sections of our society, especially the workers and the poor who are on daily basis are the worst victims or crime and abuse.
4. The SAPS’s new found love or obsession to mitigate over industrial actions using force or intimidation is reminiscent of the Robert Mugabe led police state brutality in Zimbabwe and it will never be tolerated by workers in our country. Our members are capable of retaliating in the same manner and vigour they did during the apartheid era brutality.
5. Numsa calls on AMEO management to accede to workers demands and stop running to police like spoilt-brats. Our members are harmless and should not be treated like criminals. The AMEO should also understand that SAPS is not a Bargaining Chamber for wage negotiations and improved conditions of employment.
Contact:Castro NgobeseNational Spokesperson – 073 299 1595
Source
Numsa Press Release