Christopher Motabogi
JOASA, the federation representing approximately 1300 striking magistrates, is expected to decide this week on the exact dates for a two-day total shutdown by magistrates. The federation’s members have been on a ‘go slow’ for the past three weeks, although reports about the impact of that action remains sketchy. “The burning issue is that nobody really cares about our remuneration. The disparity between the high court and the lower court judiciary is so alarming that it seems as if we are two separate judiciaries.
What we are requesting is a single judiciary where there is uniform remuneration, service benefits and so on,” says Joasa president Nazeem Joemath.
At the beginning of the strike the office of the Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng said the striking magistrates would jeopardise the welfare of the very people to whom they are obliged by the constitution to render a service. Initial reports suggested minimal magistrates’ strike success, except at Kimberley and East London. Joemath, however, maintains that 90% of magistrates in the Eastern Cape are on strike, and between 65% and 70% on average in other provinces. Meanwhile, at least 260 000 teachers from the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU), went on a go-slow on Tuesday as inland schools re-opened.
SADTU general secretary, Mugwena Maluleke, says the union demands that education minister, Angie Motshekga and her director-general, Bobby Soobrayan, tender their resignation for failing education. “We are only concentrating on teaching learners for the required hours of contact time. And therefore, anything outside contact time, we don’t cooperate, we don’t do it and that is what constitutes our go-slow,” said Maluleke. He says SADTU would continue to mobilise for the removal of both Motshekga and Soobrayan, whom the union accuse of failing leaners and undermining collective bargaining in education.
“This is a continuation of a call that we have made in the last quarter where we have said that collective bargaining is an instrument and a strategy to promote labour peace in education…therefore we don’t need disruptions in education,” said Maluleke.