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The Health and Allied Workers Indaba Trade Union (formerly known as the Young Nurses Indaba Trade Union) met from the 12th to the 14th of January 2023 at the Rosenbusch Conference Venue in Walkerville South of Johannesburg. The union spent time analysing the work of the previous years, from the time that the union was registered in 2017, to take stock of the gains as well as the challenges that faced the union from the time of inception.

It is important to remind the public that Young Nurses Indaba Trade Union was formed to fill a pressing need in the healthcare sector. There was a desperate need for a youthful and youth-led nurses’ union, driven by a hunger to transform nursing and healthcare. Nurses are fed up with being abused by the state and by bosses in the private sector, especially when their job demands so much from them emotionally, psychologically and physically. Nursing is a profession that demands passion and dedication and nurses give their all to their work, even their lives. But in return for their selfless sacrifice, they are treated like disposable condoms by the system.

YNITU was born to respond to these conditions. Nurses were ready for a radical trade union to disrupt the status quo. This is not to say there are no nurses unions, but YNITU is the only one with an agenda to revolutionize the healthcare sector.

Since 2017 we have fought many battles against this brutal state. We have fought for community health workers and EPWP workers to be insourced; we have fought for the state to take care of nursing colleges and nursing students; we have contributed meaningfully to discussions on the future of healthcare and the NHI; we have joined in campaigns with our former federation SAFTU for the right to strike and to reject changes to the labour law; we have defended workers on the shop floor and brought many of them back from disciplinary and dismissal; we have fought for access to higher education and training for nurses; we campaigned for PPE and for meaningful increases at the public sector bargaining forum. We have launched branches and provinces and incorporated those structures into our constitution. Since 2017 YNITU has fought these and many other battles.

However, delegates at the congress realized that the time had come for the union to evolve and to grow. If the union was to succeed in transforming the healthcare sector, it had to expand its scope and organize all workers in the healthcare sector. And so this weekend, it resolved to amend the constitution and to allow the union to organise all healthcare workers, not just nurses. This includes paramedics, fire fighters, clerks in the hospitals, pharmaceutical staff, cleaners, porters, security staff, doctors, therapists, basically anyone who works in a hospital, is eligible to become a member of HAITU. We also had to change the name to reflect this and the name Health and Allied Indaba Trade Union (HAITU) was adopted.

The union must defend essential workers who are the most vulnerable workers. They risk their lives every day to provide a critical service, yet, these workers have the least protection of all, because they are not even allowed to strike in order to improve their conditions. This exposes them to serious abuse from the state and the private sector which is why their conditions, benefits and wages have been eroded over the years, because they are unable to withdraw their labour and use it as a bargaining chip to negotiate better conditions. They are defined as ‘essential’ but they are viciously exploited by the bosses and are treated like second class citizens. Workers in this space must be defended on the shop floor and they need a militant, energetic trade union to fight their battles against ruthless employers. That union is HAITU.

Delegates at the congress also elected a new leadership for the position of 2nd Deputy President, Comrade John Dzakani was elected and Phumzile Nkosi was elected National Treasurer.

Comrade Rich Sicina remains the President, comrade Mulatedzi Ramaano remains the 1st Deputy President, comrade Lerato Mthunzi remains the General Secretary and comrade Nkosingiphile Mchunu remains the Deputy General Secretary.

The congress also amended the constitution to recognize provincial structures and branches as legitimate structures of the union. And resolutions were adopted to change the term of office for the national leadership from one year to four years.

HAITU goals and campaigns for 2023 and beyond:

Loadshedding

Loadshedding is a very important campaign for HAITU. We are shocked and angered at the rate of persistent loadshedding. For us the lack of guaranteed electricity is a crisis and it needs an urgent response, because patients are dying because of it. So far only about 37 healthcare facilities are exempted from loadshedding and this is not good enough. We do not think that government is doing enough to solve this crisis, they are not prioritizing solutions. We welcome the fact that Andre De Ruyter the Eskom GCEO is leaving. He was grossly incompetent and it is clear he has no clue how to solve the problem. HAITU demands that a suitably qualified black professional must be urgently found to lead Eskom and find solutions to end the rolling blackouts. If De Ruyter stays any longer he will take us to the point of a total permanent blackout. He must be urgently replaced with someone who can actually end loadshedding so that we can save lives.

Improving benefits and conditions of health workers

This work is the bedrock of our existence as a union. We will fight to improve the conditions of work. This is not just limited to wages and benefits, but also, we must fight to improve the infrastructure in all healthcare facilities. Workers are exposed to shocking working conditions with crumbling infrastructure and a lack of resources including staff shortages and stock shortages. We cannot improve benefits of workers if we do not fight for the improvement of the infrastructure. This has a direct impact on patient care, and we would be failing the community, if we did not take the state head on in resolving these issues. We will also be fighting for the insourcing of all services that are rendered by the department such as security and cleaning services in order to advance service delivery to the community. We are trained to save lives, but right now, the healthcare sector is in such a shocking state, that we are inadvertently killing patients. This cannot go on. The ANC government is failing to take care of the community and failing to ensure quality healthcare.

The Disaster Management Plan

HAITU is concerned about the lack of a proper Disaster Management Plan and how this impacts negatively on our ability to respond to emergencies. We experienced the effects of poor planning when we were responding to the Boksburg explosion. The state is not adequately prepared to deal with disasters of this magnitude. We know this because we have been engaging firefighters who work for various municipalities in Gauteng. They work under extremely shocking conditions. As HAITU we are getting first-hand accounts from workers that they often have to do their work without proper equipment. Sometimes, they are called out to put out a fire but there is no water in the fire tanks. There are countless stories of the struggles of firefighters and emergency services personnel in our country, and their struggles are directly linked to a lack of resources.

Public Sector Wage Talks

The union supported the National Day of Action last year which was being called for by trade unions in the Public Service Coordinating Bargaining Council (PSBC). HAITU believes that workers deserve a double digit increase because ministers are living in the lap of luxury from our sweat, and from our hard work. They receive generous packages and their lifestyles are fully subsidized by hardworking workers in the public sector. HAITU rejects governments attempt to impose a 3% increase on workers.

30K members and beyond

HAITU has 20 000 members and we are growing every day. Our goal is to recruit 30 000 members so that we can join the Public Service Coordinating Bargaining Council (PSBC) bargaining council. More branches and provinces will be launched this year and we expect to have a HAITU office in every province before the end of the year. In order to achieve this we will be intensifying our recruitment drive in order to grow the union.

Education Training and Development

HAITU will continue to fight to improve education and training of workers in the healthcare sector. We have defended student nurses and fought for nursing colleges in the past, and we will intensify those campaigns this year. We will also continue to put pressure on regulatory bodies like the South African Nurses Council, the Council for Higher Education and other bodies, to fulfil their responsibilities in ensuring that health workers are able to receive upskilling and training in order to advance in their careers. This includes fighting for students in colleges to access material, bursaries and full time employment, when they graduate.

HAITU’s motto is “One sector, one union, one health sector”. This is a reflection of our vision for the future. We are readying ourselves to represent all workers in the healthcare sector because we must take on the system which has been attacking them. We believe that if we #TakeCareofTheCarer, we can take care of the broader community and the nation as a whole. The healthcare system cannot fix itself. It will require the working class to unite and work together to fight to transform it, for the benefit of our society as a whole.

Issued by General Secretary of HAITU, Lerato Mthunzi