SA govt taken to court over teacher's salaries

The Durban High Court is to hear an application next week by SA Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) in KwaZulu-Natal against the decision of the Education Department to dock salaries of teachers who went on strike last year.

Sadtu wants the court to order the department to refund monies deducted from teachers' salaries. Provincial Sadtu Secretary Sipho Nkosi says the department has reneged on its agreement not to deduct teachers' salaries until they have concluded negotiations on issues related to the strike.

"Sadtu is not going to engage in any activities including negotiations with the Department of Education. We are going to meet our members starting from today and brief our members about the developments.

Bad Faith
"Sadtu is not going to negotiate as long department continues to negotiate in bad faith."

Meanwhile, National Teachers Union (Natu) in the province also said they are planning to take the department to court over the docked teacher's salary issue.

Natu Spokesperson, Alan Thompson, says: "(The) Department has just decided to go unilaterally and dock salaries of educators; we are also going to do our best to make sure that we rectify these terrible mistakes that has been done by the department.

"So it means we are going to prepare our papers and take the department to the highest court as possible; to make sure that site salaries have been reversed and justice done on this matter. We want them to come with necessary submissions that are relevant to prove beyond reasonable point that educators were not at school."