Protesting community health workers (CHW) in the Western Cape have taken their fight for permanent jobs to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), with the union asking it to determine who their actual employer is, reports GroundUp.
The National Union of Public Service and Allied Workers (Nupsaw), which is leading the action, has said it wants “full absorption of all CHWs”.
The workers, supported by the union, have been staging protests across Cape Town this month demanding permanent jobs. They are currently employed by non-profit organisations (NPOs) contracted by the Western Cape Department of Health and Wellness.
The department told GroundUp that the province currently has no plans to permanently absorb them.
At a protest at the Zolani Centre in Nyanga by about 60 workers, Jabu Khanyile, provincial organiser at Nupsaw, said: “We will picket until we all get employed permanently.”
Asked how full absorption would change workers’ lives, he said: “We will have medical aid. Now we just drink water when we are sick.”
Vuyani Shwane, Nupsaw’s provincial office manager, said the union had referred the dispute to the CCMA under section 200A of the Labour Relations Act, asking it to decide who the workers’ employer is, regardless of what their written contracts state.
Dwayne Evans, spokesperson for the department, said the CHWs were procured “through an open, competitive tender process”.
The department provided funding for the workers’ stipends, taking into account applicable national minimum wage requirements, and the contracted NPOs were responsible for employing and managing them them, he added.
GroundUp article – Health workers take insourcing demand to the CCMA (Creative Commons Licence)
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Western Cape won’t hire CHWs on a permanent basis
Failed bid to have 47,000 community health workers made permanent employees
Eastern Cape ends 5,000 community healthcare worker jobs
Year of the Healthcare Worker: Community health workers must be better supported in 2021
Draft policy aims at uniformity for community health workers