Civil servants to vote on strike this week

Unions begin preparations
Augetto Graig
    - 2022-07-25 08:31:00
More than 100 000 civil servants, including teachers from state schools across the country, will vote this week on whether they will go on strike.
The Namibian National Teachers’ Union (Nantu), the Namibian Trade Union for Public Service Workers (Napwu) and the government jointly confirmed the voting dates as 28 and 29 July on Friday.
According to Loide Shaanika, secretary general of Nantu, the union’s members will be officially informed of exactly where and when they must vote. She also confirmed that the voting and counting process would take two days and results will be counted at the polling stations, and verified at regional and national levels.
According to the notification, the training of eligible voters will begin today.
Details of the voting process were cleared with the labour commissioner's office on Thursday. The parties agreed to postpone the previous voting dates of 25 and 26 July until this week. This is to put logistical preparation and the necessary manpower, material and financing in place.
The two unions will manage the voting process with government representatives acting as supervisors.
Last week, the deputy secretary-general of the Public Service Union of Namibia (PSUN), Ujama Kaahangoro, encouraged members and supporters to participate and overwhelmingly vote for a strike.
PSUN is an independent trade union - not affiliated with Swapo as in Napwu's case. Napwu and Nantu have been negotiating with the government for salary increases for years. Civil servants last received salary increases in 2017.
“Government’s premise that there is no money to increase workers’ salaries is indefensible, while money is wasted and spent on unnecessary expenses,” Kaahangoro said.
He called for “a total nationwide shutdown, which will be the mother of all strikes. It’s time for workers to stand together. Let’s meet the government at the strike and show them our dissatisfaction and our grievances by downing our tools until our demands are met,” he said. – [email protected]