Cosatu in the Western Cape has called on its members to stay out of work for one day in protest over the closure of 20 schools.
|||Cape Town - Cosatu in the Western Cape has called on all its members to stay out of work for one day next week in protest over the closure of 20 “disadvantaged” schools.
Making the announcement at an event planned by the Save Our Schools (SOS) campaign in Bishop Lavis on Sunday, Cosatu provincial secretary Tony Ehrenreich said: “Cosatu has about 150 000 members in the metropolitan area and about another 100 000 in the region and they are all expected to stay away from work for one day.”
“We have filed for a legal application against the Western Cape Education Department and we will be announcing the date of the strike sometime next week,” he said.
Ehrenreich said members of the SA Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) and all other Cosatu-affiliated unions would join the strike.
“We are concerned what will happen to the learners of the affected schools - all we want is for learners to have adequate facilities and we believe if we fix these schools we can save money,” he said.
ANC provincial chairman and deputy International Relations Minister Marius Fransman said this was a fight they had to fight for their children.
“Even though it is in [Education MEC Donald] Grant’s right to close schools, that does not mean we can’t take it up. Seven schools were saved through this campaign and that is a bitter-sweet victory,” Fransman said.
The campaign, started earlier this year, has received a strong following and SOS co-chairperson Matilda Vantura said the closures brought back terrible memories.
“I used to be a teacher back in the 60s and many schools were closed then for apartheid reasons and for me to be experiencing this again is just horrifying,” Vantura said.
Vantura said they had been meeting and signing petitions to keep the remaining 20 schools open.
Fransman said: “So far we have 43 000 signatures; we want to escalate that number to 100 000 signatures by mid November.”
At Sunday’s meeting, parent Christine Caesar asked what would become of the poor people who could not afford to take their children to other schools: “There are parents that live here and they have absolutely nothing… I refuse that the schools must be closed.”
Grant has assured parents that schools in neighbouring areas would be able to accommodate their children.
yolisa.tswanya@inl.co.za
Cape Argus