The National Union of Public Service and Allied workers (NUPSAW) says they will march to the North West premier’s office on Wednesday to demand permanent employment of expanded public works programme (EPWP) workers.
National Organiser, Sbonile Jeza claims government is bringing in new people to employ permanently while they are overlooked with their skills and expertise.
The union, which is joined by the National Union of Public Service and Allied Workers, is set to provide the Premier with a memorandum of demands.
Jeza says the South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) will also form part of the protest.
“We’ve agreed that we are going to submit a list of our demands and one of the demands is the permanent work because these EPWPs have been exploited too much, for more than 10 to 15 years. We have no benefits when the scheme came to SA in 2020, it was a job creating scheme.
“It is meant to bring in an income relief and make sure that participants are employable by proving them the skills so that if any job opportunities become available within government. They must be first pull from which they must pull from but here they are being overlooked. These people have enough experience, expertise and skills,” Jeza adds.
Full interview with NUPSAW National Organiser, Sbonile Jeza:
