War of words over army wage talks
The warring within the South African National Defence (SANDF) continues. This time the SA National Defence Union (Sandu) won the latest round in the Pretoria high court against the SANDF.
The union obtained an order (by consent) gagging the SANDF from distributing a bulletin claiming that Sandu lied about the latest wage talks.
Judge Ntsikekelo Poswa ordered the Minister of Defence, the Defence Secretary and Chief of the SANDF to remove the bulletin from the website and intranet system of the Department of Defence.
The 17 000-strong Sandu, in an urgent application, approached the court to order the SANDF to immediately stop distributing Bulletin No 00/07, with the headline “Greatest lies ever told by a military trade union”.
The court earlier ordered the SANDF to immediately stop distributing this bulletin, but Sandu’s acting national secretary Johannes Greeff said the SANDF continued to do so.
He stated in court papers that the respondents were thus in contempt of court and asked that each of the parties, the minister included, be fined R15 000.
Sandu, however, did not persist with this, as the SANDF agreed to remove the bulletin.
The contested notice stated that Sandu had lied to its members regarding wage negotiations and that the union said there was a proposed 19% salary increase on the cards, while it was in fact a 7.5% increase.
Sandu denied it tried to mislead its members and said the figures were contained in a concept proposal which it never got to present to the SANDF.
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23 Octobre 2007 à 10:00 dans
- zsandf (anglais)
