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The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (POPCRU) is deeply concerned about how the South African Police Service’s (SAPS) management is conducting itself as it prepares for the upcoming national general elections taking place next week on the 29th of May 2024.

The SAPS has failed to engage with POPCRU on how the election processes will unfold, specifically in terms of how officers will be compensated and what hours they will be expected to work. The SAPS has also violated the Safety and Security Sectoral Bargaining Council (SSSBC) Agreement 2 of 2009, which serves as the rules of engagement for such discussions.

As a union, we are apprehensive about the fact that the SAPS has not taken election preparations serious, relegating the preparatory responsibilities to each province instead of implementing a comprehensive unified strategy. 

Given the current political climate, we are of the view that the national office of the SAPS should have been leading the process of policing the upcoming elections. By decentralising this important role, we believe that this is yet another attack on collective bargaining.

We are convinced that there are some elements within the management of the SAPS who want to deliberately sabotage the upcoming elections. As such, because requests regarding members’ working conditions have not been concluded and are creating some confusion, we urge the Minister of Police to urgently intervene. 

An ongoing negotiation divide

POPCRU has been relentless in its pursuit of a sit-down with SAPS management to over the past three months to resolve substantial issues concerning our members. But, they have consistently shown that they refuse to come to the table on matters relating to members’ working conditions.

Thus far, no clear deployment plan for members in the SSSBC has been drafted. On the topic of the unilateral cancellation of leave requests, there is no clear catch-up plan on when workers will be allowed to recover their leave days. 

On special events, it’s still unclear when they are supposed to start and end, and how much members are to benefit in line with the SSSBC Agreement 2 of 2014. There is also no clear overtime compliance in line with the SSSBC Agreement 3 of 2015, which provinces do not have a clear mandate over.

We regard the SAPS management’s refusal to bargain on these matters as a clear attack on collective bargaining, which we cannot accept. Decisions made at a strategic level, specifically by Human Resource Utilisation (HRU), Labour Relations, and Human Resource Management (HRM), which are responsible for the conditions of service, have undercut our members for too long.

Moreover, decisions made by the SAPS over the past few years have devastated our member’s morale. For example, we have officers who have been constables and sergeants for over 12 years with no signs of promotion on the horizon. 

We have been engaging with the SAPS on how to distribute personnel to stations and areas where there are shortages. However, they continue to refuse to allocate staff and resources adequately.

The arrogance of the SAPS was also witnessed when they unilaterally implemented a danger allowance for certain specialised units, leaving out the majority of members who are confronted with danger on a daily basis. This serious oversight is an insult to officers across the country.

Our concern is that the SAPS is again going to mislead the public at tomorrow’s National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure (NatJoints) meeting, where we believe they will claim that all is well while the above conditions have not been finalised at the bargaining council.

We have engaged the National Police Commissioner. However, it seems the SAPS refuses to implement the outcomes of our discussions thereof, and this arrogance is likely going to have a direct impact on the elections as it relates to the finalisation of deployments.

As POPCRU, we are in defence of our members not being abused and are equally committed to ensuring peaceful elections.

Issued by Thulani Ngwenya, President of POPCRU