Fed-up cops get ready for mass march by picketing

The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) yesterday launched the start of two-week long countrywide lunchtime pickets at selected criminal justice cluster buildings, to culminate in a mass protest march to the Union Buildings.

Popcru wants to see government acceding to worker demands, including:

• Restructuring of the South African Police Service;
• End to police killings;
• One police service and one police Act;
• Finalisation of grading of public servants’ appointments;
• Promotion policy; and
• Finalisation of shift patterns.

Popcru, which targeted correctional, traffic and police institutions, claimed to have held “numerous time-spanning engagements with employers” in the criminal justice cluster over working conditions faced by its members, according to spokesperson Richard Mamabolo.

“These engagements have not signified any real improvements,” he said.

Popcru members were “left with no other alternative but to take to the streets in fighting for their rights”.

“Conscious of the practice and need to exhaust all internal processes through negotiation, it became clear the employer had not been considerate to our plight.

“These prolonged delays finally led to a decision to go to the streets by way of planning a national march. It is due to this that scores of Popcru members and supporters will be attending a national march on Friday, July 13 towards the Union Buildings, where memorandums of demands are expected to be given to the different governmental heads.”

Mamabolo also cited “the recurring inmate escapes, stabbings, gangsterism and lack of rehabilitation” as being “remnants of the kind of conditions our short-staffed correctional officials find themselves in”.

“And they are the ones regularly taking the bulk of the blame for these, yet being forced to work under inhumane conditions, which they cannot be in charge of unless some drastic actions are taken,” said Mamabolo.

He said most correctional service officials did not have proper uniforms.

“They are also forced to work illegal shift patterns and do not have a promotion policy,” he said.

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