Strikes drive officials back to school

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ANC MP and former Sadtu provincial secretary Fezeka Loliwe, Sadtu general secretary Mugwena Maluleke and the Public Service Coordinating Bargaining Council head Frikkie de Bruin were each awarded a Master of Laws (LLM) degree from different topics on labour relations in the public sector.

Bringing back the dignity in education

Loliwe, who also holds a masters in education from te Port Elizabeth university, zoomed in on the topic of workplace discipline in the public education sector.

Loliwe said with South Africans governed by various pieces of legislation, employers, in particular, tended to overlook these.

"People tend to overlook the Labour Relations Act as well as the Employment of Educators' Act, which is clear on how to deal with issues of ill-discipline. There are people who tend to randomly dismiss people without subjecting them to the necessary processes.

"I also want to say to employers 'rather than ill-treating employees here is the best way of following procedures so that if there is any case of ill-discipline, then you will be on the right side because you have followed correct procedures'.

"I just wanted to bring back the dignity in education."

Minimising strike action

De Bruin did a comparative study on the effectiveness of the minimum service agreements within the public service, which is a topic he "specifically chose because of the crippling strike action since 2007".

"One of the biggest problems that we have in the public service is that your essential services like nurses, doctors and policemen who are not supposed to be going on strike, are going on strike.

"That made me think of doing some research on this and looking at the rest of the world and how they deal with it."

De Bruin said while South Africa had legislation that was more favourable and protected workers' rights to strike, it needed to apply a different method to ensure that strikes by essential services workers did not come easily.

"We need to work very hard in pulling the public service out of the normal labour relations environment as it is, because you can't compare Checkers workers and teachers or nurses with one another.

"So you can't allow a teacher to go on strike as easily as you would allow a person in another environment. It is just two different worlds.

"For instance, doctors and police cannot be in the Labour Relations Act and can't enjoy the same right to strike, not when there are lives at stake during the process."

Encouraging youth empowerment through education

Maluleke said his decision to return to the classroom was to encourage youth to empower themselves through education.

"In a country that has a massive skills shortage, we need to encourage our pupils and students to make sure that they study harder to improve the condition of our country.

"Our economy needs to grow and to do that we, in education, carry that huge responsibility to urge the young and old to put education first to prosper themselves and their country," he said.