Kiviet’s plate full with ‘simmering’ Nehawu tension

ONE of newly anointed legislature speaker Noxolo Kiviet’s immediate tasks will be to defuse simmering tensions between the legislature’s bosses and labour.

This after more than 200 employees aligned to National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) at the institution, threatened to “bring the legislature to its knees” in the next few weeks if their demands for pay increases are not met.

With negotiations deadlocked, the labour force this week declared a dispute with their employer after both parties failed to reach common ground over salary increases.

Workers initially demanded a 12% wage increase which they later adjusted to 11%, while the employer is offering 7%.

During a go-slow protest last month to force management to agree to their demands, workers disrupted interviewing processes taking place at the institution.

This led to the suspension of five union leaders which was later reversed when provincial ANC leadership intervened.

Moments after she was sworn into her new job on Wednesday, Kiviet said she was aware of the labour issues and to resolve this will be high on her agenda.

Nehawu legislature branch secretary Branton Jonas yesterday welcomed Kiviet’s second deployment as legislature speaker and said the union was hoping her experience would benefit their “radical transformation agenda”.

Kiviet was legislature speaker before being deployed as provincial premier five years ago.

“Since comrade Kiviet left the legislature as speaker in 2009, workers here have became poorer because of the political administration of Fikile Xasa who unilaterally changed the conditions of service and adopted policies detrimental to the gains of workers.

“The union remains resolute that there is no hope for a better provincial legislature under the current administration without decisive political intervention from the office of the speaker.

“We therefore specifically call on the new speaker to pay immediate attention to the current deadlock on wage negotiations and the irregular recruitment practices under the current administration,” Jonas said.

He added that, since the union had declared a dispute, paving the way for legal strike action, “we will bring the legislature to its knees during the next few weeks should there be no favourable response”.

Jonas charged that the legislature administration had embraced “a culture of victimisation and management with fear,” saying he was hopeful Kiviet “will correct these anomalies and restore the dignity of workers through the urgent review of current policies”.

Addressing media moments after her swearing in, Kiviet said in any new environment one first had to understand the challenges.

“Having worked at the legislature before, I do have a sense of what is happening here and trying to address that will be on the top of my agenda.

“I am therefore going to spend some time understanding the causes of these wrangles.

“However, I must first satisfy myself that there are wrangles and then look at what are the causes of such, so we address those causes,” Kiviet said. — asandan@dispatch.co.za