Durban - The South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) will be holding a series of meetings with its members across the country with an aim of getting a new negotiating mandate for 2023/24.
Sadtu KwaZulu-Natal secretary Nomarashiya Caluza told The Mercury that the meetings would be held from Monday to Wednesday this week and the union expected all its members to attend without any difficulties from authorities.
“Sadtu has begun the mandate-seeking process for the 2023/24 round of negotiations and we do expect our members to arrive in numbers to these meetings,” said Caluza.
She said they were seeking consensus from the members because the previous one had reached its end.
Some people have raised concerns about teachers attending union activity during working hours, saying such a move was counter-productive and could impact badly on pupils.
However, the teacher union boss insisted that everything was above board, and members would be within their rights in attending union meetings.
“Our members will be doing nothing illegal because participating in union activity is one of the provisions in the country’s labour laws and so we expect our members to be allowed to attend the meetings this week without any challenges,” said Caluza.
The next round of negotiations with the government through the Department of Public Services and Administration is expected to discuss salaries, medical aid packages, leave and housing subsidies.
Sadtu is one of the largest teacher unions in the country and is the largest affiliate of Cosatu.