UNIONS TO BLAME FOR CHAOTIC CLASHES

MATSAPHA - It seems like union leaders under TUCOSWA have a mountain to climb in as far as proving their case, regarding the alleged police brutality on protesters.

This is because former Labour Commissioner Sipho Tsabedze, who appeared before the investigative committee probing the alleged police brutality on protesters, told the committee that the police conduct had immensely improved since 2017. In fact, Tsabedze, who is now a Principal Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Public Service, blamed unions for the chaotic clashes between protesters and the police, which took place in 2018. Tsabedze made these submissions before the committee yesterday, in his capacity as a former labour commissioner.

Clashed

He said from 2015 going backwards, union members and the police clashed frequently during demonstrations and most of the time, it was the law enforcers’ hand that was tough on the protesters. In that regard, the former labour commissioner submitted that workers’ federations, like the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA) were registered. He said after its registration, the cause of clashes between protesters and the police was looked into and it was agreed that guidelines which should be followed by all stakeholders, should be put in place.
“This gave birth to the Code of Good Practice, which was made public in 2015,” he said.

Thereafter, he said the tripartite (government, worker’s federations and employers) together with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) agreed that all the stakeholders should be trained about the Code. He said the training process started with the police, where senior officers were trained and this took place in 2016. However, he said when it was time to train trade union leaders, government had a busy schedule and they ended up not receiving the training on the Code. Afterwards, he said the Public Order Act was amended in 2017. At a later stage, the former labour commissioner said it was observed that the union leaders needed the Code of Good Practise training.

“On the other hand, it was observed that the police conduct had improved as the officers’ level of tolerance had increased immensely, even if they are provoked,” Tsabedze submitted.
He said police demonstrated this during the industrial actions which took place in 2018, like the teachers meeting of August 28, 2018, which took place at the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) centre. He said the teachers’ union had not applied from the Labour Advisory Board (LAB) to use the streets as per Section 40 of the Industrial Relations Act and did not have permission from the local authority.

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: