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No trade union in the democratic history of South Africa has attracted as much criticism
as SADTU, the South African Democratic Teachers Union. In the past, attempts to
weaken the union’s powerful hold on the country’s education system have largely
come to naught. Over 18 months ago, the Democratic Alliance tried to go another
route: asking the South African Human Rights Commission to probe whether SADTU
is violating the constitutional rights of learners to a basic education. It’s now been
confirmed that the investigation is under way.
Selling teaching positions. Protecting sex-pest teachers. Regularly calling strikes which
shut down teaching and learning at schools that can ill afford the lost time. These are
just some of the charges routinely laid at the door of the South African Democratic
Teachers Union (SADTU), which in the past has seemed to wield an unbreakable
influence over the country’s education system.
Now, the DA is hoping that the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) can
intervene. The opposition party announced on Thursday that it has been informed
that the SAHRC is investigating SADTU, following a complaint laid by the DA in
September 2015.
“Children’s rights is one of seven focus areas of the SAHRC,” DA shadow basic
education minister Gavin Davis told the Daily Maverick on Thursday. “We therefore
expect the SAHRC to conduct a thorough investigation into the myriad ways that
SADTU denies children their right to a decent basic education.”
The DA has asked the SAHRC to investigate, in particular, SADTU’s “blocking of
measures to hold educators accountable for poor performance’; its “neglect of
teaching and learning while engaged in various unlawful protests and strikes”, and its
“unlawful interference and corruption in the appointment of teachers and principals”.
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Davis also points out that South Africa has more teaching days lost to strike action
than any other country in southern Africa.
“It is no wonder that we get a poor return on the huge amount of money we spend
on education, to the detriment of children living in the poorest parts of the country,”
he says.
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The opposition party has been one of SADTU’s most consistent and vocal critics, and
there is no love lost between the two bodies. “The DA will never rest until they destroy
our organisation,” SADTU media officer Nomusa Cembi told the Daily Maverick. 2
Leaving political ill will aside, however, is there merit in investigating whether SADTU
as an organisation has contributed to denying children their right to education?
“Definitely,” says Dr Nic Spaull, a senior researcher in the economics department at
Stellenbosch University who has written extensively on education policy.
“Perhaps the most recent and comprehensive treatment of this topic is the Ministerial
Task Team on the jobs-for-cash scandal which was released last year, also called the
Volmink Report. That report states emphatically that SADTU has captured the
education department in most provinces to the detriment of education.”
The Volmink Report found that “six and possibly more of the nine provinces are where
SADTU is in de facto charge of the management, administration and priorities of
education there”. The report states that SADTU’s “undue influence” is “endemic to
greater and lesser degrees in the entire education system”. 1
Spaull also believes that it is problematic that most officials in the Department of Basic
Education are paid-up member of SADTU – “making it difficult to play the role of
referee in union-Department disputes”.
He adds a note of caution, however: “I don’t think that all the failings of the education
system can be laid at the feet of SADTU. In many instances, SADTU is stepping into
the gap that only exists because the department is not doing its job. The vacuum left
by an absent administration is filled by SADTU.”
Education lobby group Equal Education is also wary of putting all the blame for South
Africa’s education crisis on SADTU.
“Equal Education regards trade unions as a necessary component of a democracy,”
spokesperson Mila Kakaza told the Daily Maverick. “Teachers’ unions, including
SADTU, are indispensable to the transformation of South Africa’s education system.”
The group warns against “turning valid criticisms of SADTU into reasons for
undermining collective bargaining”.
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However, Equal Education also notes: “There is systemic rot which SADTU must accept
its share of responsibility for.” 1
SADTU’s power cannot be understated: it boasts more than 260,000 members and a
monthly income of R18-million-plus. Within the tripartite alliance, the union wields
considerable political clout. As Sipho Masondo pointed out in City Press last year: “It is the only affiliate of labour federation Cosatu to be found in every corner of the
country and in every ANC branch. This gives the ANC a powerful and well-organised
campaign resource during elections. It is for this reason that the ANC will have no
incentive to mess with SADTU.” 1
If SADTU is to meet its Waterloo, it is unlikely to be at the hands of the SAHRC. The
Chapter 9 institution is vested with the powers to “take steps and secure appropriate
redress where human rights have been violated”, but in practice is widely perceived
as toothless. It failed to respond to queries about the investigation from the Daily
Maverick on Thursday.
Davis says that he does not want to prescribe any particular sanctions to the SAHRC,
since the investigation is still under way. “However, we hope that the SAHRC will
recommend ways to balance the rights of educators to unionise and the rights of
children to a quality basic education,” he says.
For its part, SADTU says it knows precisely nothing about the investigation.
“SADTU has not received any letter from the Human Rights Commission notifying us
that we are being investigated,” SADTU media officer Nomusa Cembi told the Daily
Maverick. She says that the union learnt that the DA had laid a complaint against them
with the SAHRC in 2015 through media reports.
“We then wrote to the commission to ask if they had indeed received the complaint
and if so [if they would] provide us with a copy and advise us on the steps they were
going to take in handling the complaint. The commission, up to this day, never
responded to us.”
But SADTU will cooperate with any legal process – “even it is brought against us by
our class enemies”, Cembi says.
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“SADTU remains a staunch supporter of quality public education for all our children,
while protecting the rights of teachers as workers as per the same Constitution DM
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