Department of Home Affairs on Pending Strike Immigration Officers: briefing

Meeting report

HOME AFFAIRS PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE
30 August 2006
PENDING STRIKE BY IMMIGRATION OFFICERS: BRIEFING BY DEPARTMENT

Acting chairperson: Mr H Chauke (ANC)

Documents handed out:
Presentation to the Portfolio Committee of Home Affairs on the pending immigration strike

Delagation from Home Affairs:
Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Mr Malusi Gigaba (left meeting after ten minutes)
Mr Ronald Oppelt, Department of Home Affairs Labour Relations Manager
Ms Lorraine Makola, acting Deputy Director General of Department of Home Affairs
Ms Odette Ramsingh, Director-General: Office of the Public Service Commission. She is part of the intervention team of the Department of Home Affairs (attended last thirty minutes of meeting)

SUMMARY
The Committee was briefed on the pending strike by immigration officers scheduled for Friday 1 September 2006 [it was called off on afternoon of 31 August. The Public Servants Association (PSA) accused the department of not implementing the outcome of job evaluations conducted for the immigration officers and thereby keeping higher wages from them. The delegation of the department commented that it had done everything the PSA had asked for and expected that the strike would not take place. If the strike were to take place, the delegation argued, then the department would take full responsibility and have plans in order that would prevent chaos from arising in ports of entry into South Africa (such as international airports).

MINUTES
The meeting started half an hour late due to a flight delay that held up the delegation from the Department of Home Affairs.

The Chair started the meeting by explaining that the pending strike of the immigration officers was so important that the Committee had decided to postpone their regular schedule to be briefed by the department. For the past five years, the Committee had repeatedly talked about problems with immigration officers. If the department had been aware of problems with their salaries and housing, why had it not done anything about them? One of the core functions of Home Affairs is immigration.

Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Mr M Gigaba, stated that the department is confident that the conflict will be resolved in time. Initially the department hoped that these were going to be straight forward negotiations with the unions. It turned out to be more difficult than that. An offer had been made again to the unions in order to prevent the strike.

Mr R Oppelt gave the department's presentation (see document). He had the following additional points (not mentioned in the document):
• On 7 August the Department could not meet the agreed date on how to implement the new salary levels, because it did not have authority to do that on its own. The Minister had to agree to the outcome and implementation of the job evaluation. This approval came on 28 August 2006. The delay is what caused the threat to strike, not the evaluation itself.

• The 1163 immigration officers were represented by the unions as (approximately) follows:
- PSA 614
-  National Education, Health and Allied Workers' Union (NEHAWU) 442
-  Other 20 

• The Department has gone beyond the requests of the union by keeping officers without matriculation certificates who had climbed up to a certain level on that particular level, even if the job evaluation came out lower for these people. If the unions decided to proceed with the strike, the Department would not know on what basis. Only the PSA expressed the possibility of striking, the other unions were satisfied by the offer made by the Department. If the PSA decided to proceed with the strike, the Department would go to court to prevent that.

Ms L Makola (acting Deputy Director General) then explained the steps the Department would undertake in case of a strike. According to her, the police had been contacted to help with manpower. A plan would be made to deal with the strike. All crucial departments and ports of entry will be manned. The Department had briefed its staff and the media on that matter.

Discussion
Mr F Beukman (ANC) asked if the delegation had received the resolutions and reports of the Committee. He also wanted to know why the Committee was not briefed earlier on the dispute since the PSA had declared the dispute already on 12 June.

Mr M Skhosana (ANC) asked if the other unions, besides PSA, had agreed to the levels named by the Department. If the strike had already been looming in June, why had the Committee heard about it only the previous day through the media and not via the Department?

Mr S Huang (ANC) that he was disappointed in the Department's late arrival. Especially since the issue at hand was a looming crisis for the Department. He asked if the Department would be able to stop the strike going ahead on Friday and who would take responsibility if the strike went ahead. He asked if there would be occupation of the ports of entry by strikers, because that could damage the image of South Africa greatly.

Mr M Sibande (ANC) said that he was very concerned. He asked if the Department followed the Labour Relations Act or if it had just come up with an offer because he had heard during a work visit that people at the same level got paid different amounts. He also asked if the custom officials within SARS (South African Revenue Service) were more educated than the immigration officers. He referred to racism at Cape Town airport, where people had been promised on-the-job training but now got to hear that they were considered uneducated.

Mr K Morwamoche (ANC) stressed the seriousness of the matter at stake and said that the Committee was also to blame for the problems within Home Affairs, because it kept approving department budgets and thus passing money on to people who were not doing enough.

Ms S Kalyan (DA) said that she did not accept the delegation's apology for being thirty minutes late. She considered it an insult to both herself and Parliament. She asked why it had taken two weeks for the Department to respond to the Committee's memo. Secondly, she asked for an explanation from the acting DDG on why the previous week she had told the Committee that there were no problems with the unions. She commented that Plan C was a joke. There was a shortage of staff on the ground. She would like to know from where the people come from that the Department wanted to train and deploy.

Ms Makola began answering, but was interrupted by Mr Beukman on a point of order. He wanted to know the reason why the Committee had been officially informed only at this stage while the dispute had clearly existed some time before. 

She replied that the accounting officer had been well informed about everything. She would have to ask him for the reason why there had been a delay in informing the Committee.

Mr Oppelt said that the other unions had not given input on the latest levels suggested by the Department. Only the PSA would come back to them with a response. He was unable to say if they were going to strike. They would get back to him the next morning. The job evaluation happened within the framework of the Labour Relations Act. 

Ms Makola acknowledged that expectations had been created at the point of training immigration officers, that they would go to Level Six after twelve months of training. This was one of the issues that had caused the threat to strike. The Department planned on levelling the salaries of immigration officers with those of the SARS custom officials. This however had taken more time than planned. 

On racism in the Cape Town office, she explained that there was a plan for on-the-job training for those who did not have the necessary certificate. This helped with promoting people from Level Two to Level Six. She said that there were no "uneducated" people at the immigration office. All the officials could do the job so that proved that they were educated.

On preventing the strike, she said that the PSA had sent the Department a letter in which it agreed to the outcome of the negotiations, but after that the PSA made different statements to the media. The Department was unable to state at this point that it could prevent the strike.

Concerning Plan C, she agreed with the fact that there was not enough manpower at the ports of entry. However, Plan C was not yet final so she could not tell the Committee much about it. When Plan C was finalised, then it would be sent to the Committee.

Mr Huang interrupted by saying that none of his questions had been answered. He emphasised his question about the responsibility for the strike.

In response, Mr Oppelt stated that the Department would take full responsibility if the strike proceeded. In case of a strike, only union members of the PSA would strike. That meant about 600 people, not everybody, would be on strike. The posts they occupied would be identified and, by looking at the different shifts, the Department would come up with a plan. People from elsewhere could be deployed in those spots. Plus not all strikers were in fact immigration officers.

Ms M Maunye (ANC) asked if it were certain that the other unions would not strike too. She also asked why it had taken the Department so long to address the problems of the salaries. She asked about plans to ensure that no one would get hurt during the strike.

Ms I Mars (IFP) stated that to her it seemed that the Department did not realise the major problem a strike would be. There was no sense emergency. A strike could go on for a long time. All the Department said was that it would train extra people. Did the Department know how they would handle the influx of people and if the Department realised what a strike could do to the image of South Africa?

Mr Morwamoche inquired if Trevor Manual's Department of Finance could perhaps help concerning the financial side of things. 

Mr Skhosana asked if it was only about the salary or about a whole package of demands, including the work environment and housing? He also inquired if the Department was confident that the PSA could persuade its members to accept the latest proposal and, in case of a strike, how long would it last?

Mr Beukman again focused attention on the fact that the delegation had not received any of the Committee reports or resolution. He suggested that the Department appeared before the Committee to explain how they dealt with the reports and resolutions from the Committee.

Mr Oppelt commented on the safety of the workers by saying that the Department could only look after its workers inside the workplace. How they conducted themselves outside that workplace could not be controlled by the Department. By law the intimidation of non-strikers was illegal.
On dealing with an ongoing strike, the Department hoped it could deal with it. They hoped the strike would not happen and if it did, that it would be short. They were confident of the offer they had made to the union. The PSA had to be fair and reasonable in response. The Department had done more than enough.

Mr Oppelt answered the question on the package of demands, saying it was not within the Department's competence to negotiate benefits with unions. By law it could not do that. Benefits were negotiated on a national level for the whole public sector.

In response to Mr Skhosana asking about housing for those immigration officers who had to travel long distances, Ms Makola said that it has the intention of the Department of doing so and they are looking into it.

The Chair noted that the Committee was very concerned about the immigration officers, especially with the challenges of the 2010 World Cup when many people would be entering the country. Enough people have to be trained to be able to deal with that all.

Ms Odette Ramsingh, Director-General: Office of the Public Service Commission, then joined the meeting and explained that the Department had met with all the unions and had tried to deal with the situation holistically, so that all Home Affairs employees benefitted. The Department could only operate within existing law and that meant performing a job evaluation. The outcome of that had been that everyone automatically went to Level 5 and if a person had a specific qualification it would go to Level 6. The Department put a sweet deal on the table. It would be unreasonable of the union to proceed to strike. The whole process took too long, but it was unable to go back in time. The evaluation of Levels 7-12 had to go more quickly. The evaluation of Levels 1-6 took five weeks, the evaluation of 7-12 will be done in one or two weeks. For the Department to get its moral high ground back it has to move quicker.

Ms Kalyan asked for her comment on the prospect of promotion.

Mr Huang asked how the evaluation of Levels 7-12 could go more quickly than Levels 1-6.

The Director General replied on the issue of promotion that there are bursaries for people who want to learn more. It was up to the people if they want that and took that move. The Department provided the opportunity. The evaluation of the Levels 7-12 could go more quickly than Levels 1-6 because of the experience gained while doing the evaluation of 1-6.

Ms Kalyan wants to propose a resolution that the people responsible for not informing the Committee last week about the pending problems be brought before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) to explain themselves. SCOPA should deal with such matters too.

The Chair agreed and said that there were more cases like that.

The Director General reminded the Committee that as part of the intervention at Home Affairs a report would be written about all appointments of Senior Management Service (SMS) since 2004 to date. The report will be presented to the Minister at the beginning of September 2006.

The Chair asked, with regard to service delivery, if that report would also look into the quality of work delivered by those people

The Director General answered that the hiring of people below the set criteria would of course reflect badly on the position. All the people appointed would be evaluated.

The Chair asked for reassurance that there will be a contingency plan if there was a strike.

The Director General responded that no matter what happened on Friday 1 September the department would come up with a contingency plan.

The Chair inquired after the reports of the Committee and why the delegation had not seen them.

The Director General said that she had seen one report from the Committee but besides that none. Since her involvement with the Department of Home Affairs, she had noted two gaps. One is that the department presentations to the Committee were not first discussed at top management level. As a Director General she was very uncomfortable with that. The other gap was the issue raised by the Committee that its resolutions for the department did not reach all the necessary people. This would discussed with the Minister.

The Chair urged that this situation must be improved.

The meeting was adjourned.