Publications
Partners
The agreement that ended the four-week strike in Parliament at the end of last year appears to be showing cracks.
The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu), which represents white-collar workers in Parliament, has laid a complaint with the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) over Parliament’s failure to pay performance bonuses and its unilateral revision of employees’ assessment ratings.
However, Parliament said yesterday the CCMA action had been withdrawn while matters were being discussed internally with Nehawu. The union denied it had withdrawn its case.
“That is not true. We did not withdraw the case,” said Sthembiso Tembe, chairperson of Nehawu in the Parliament branch.
“They have to submit information to the CCMA as they have not been cooperating with them thus far,” he added.
This latest row comes after Parliament refused to pay performance bonuses for some eligible employees. Instead, the institution reduced the performance assessment ratings of over half of the employees who were on strike, without consulting those employees.
City Press has seen an email from an HR executive to Nehawu, stating: “After the conclusion of the moderation process for the 2014/15 financial year, ratings of 571 employees were revised and bonus payments were made to all eligible employees.”
City Press has also seen a memo from Parliament’s deputy secretary of support services, Baby Tyawa, and acting deputy secretary of core business Advocate Modibedi Phindela challenging the performance assessment ratings of a large number of employees who were on strike, and refusing to endorse them.
Parliament did not respond to detailed
questions from City Press about why Tyawa initiated the move to nullify performance assessments after an agreement on performance bonuses was signed in December.
Parliament came to a standstill in November 2015 as Nehawu embarked on an unprotected strike, demanding performance bonuses be paid on the total-cost-to-company package, in accordance with an agreement reached in March 2015.
But Parliament, relying on a later agreement of June 2015, wanted to pay the performance bonuses based on 25% of the monthly salary.
The unprecedented four-week strike action saw the disruption of portfolio committee meetings and the occupation of the National Assembly by striking employees. The strike then turned violent as armed police shot stun grenades at Parliament employees inside the precinct.
Nehawu president Mzwandile Makwayiba even left the Cosatu national congress halfway through to seek
a political intervention in Parliament, but his efforts were fruitless.
Towards the end of the strike in December, Parliament mid-level managers approached the secretary to Parliament, Gengezi Mgidlana, with a memo that was later withdrawn, warning of troubled relations going forward.
They called on Mgidlana not to insist on the no work, no pay rule, to offer trauma support to all staff with a view to restoring trust and good working relations, and to come up with a short-term plan for reintegrating staff into operations.
