Durban - A mortuary workers’ go-slow over payments they were promised has left bodies piling up and families unable to bury their loved ones.
Workers are allegedly not picking up bodies, leaving it to the police to take them to mortuaries and are conducting far fewer post-mortems a day.
The Public Allied Workers Union of SA (Pawusa) and Public Servants Association (PSA) said the industrial action was over payments promised to workers by the provincial health department, but stopped by the national department.
PSA provincial manager Claude Naicker said the payments were related to job descriptions and workers’ salaries. He said they were not related to training, as was the case in Gauteng.
“Conditions of service are set centrally for all mortuary workers throughout the country, but the KZN Department of Health decided to restructure salaries on its own.
“When they did this, they also indicated they would back-pay workers from 2006.”
He said workers were expecting up to R90 000 a person on March 1, as promised.
Pawusa provincial secretary Halalisani Gumede said on that day workers were instead informed that the national department had halted the payments.
A letter from the national director-general, Precious Matsoso, which was seen by The Mercury, states that the provincial department’s action “defeats the spirit and objective of collective bargaining.
“Further, it must be mentioned that the impending move will cause instability and will impact negatively on other FPO (forensic pathology offices) nationally…”
In the letter addressed to acting KZN health head Dr Musa Gumede, Matsoso issues a directive for him to “refrain from intended action”.
However, Halalisani Gumede believes there is no turning back now, as workers were promised the payments and were counting on the money.
“We have an undertaking from Dr Gumede in writing and we will be approaching our lawyers to see what options we have to pursue the payments promised to workers.”
Naicker said that while it was difficult to tell its members not to take money, PSA made it clear to its members from the beginning that this provincial undertaking would not be implementable.
He said the only solution was for the plan to be adopted nationally, or else there could be further industrial action.
The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) said that while workers were on a go-slow, necessary duties were still being performed. The union denies bodies are piling up in the mortuaries.
The eThekwini Nehawu regional secretary, Ayanda Zulu, said while there was a long-standing dispute with the health department over remuneration discrepancies, their main grievance was the relocation of two of their members from Gale Street mortuary.
The DA’s Imran Keeka said yesterday that the party had written to Health MEC Sibongiseni Dhlomo about the backpay issue.
The spokesperson for the KZN Department of Health, Ncumisa Mafunda, said: “The Department is extremely concerned by disruptions to service at some of its Medico-Legal mortuaries.
“To mitigate the impact of the action by workers on the public, the department has activated a contingency plan whereby mortal remains are transported between facilities and processed accordingly.
“The department wishes to convey its most sincere apologies to all affected families, and assures the public that it is doing its level best to ensure operations at the affected facilities return to normal.”