The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union [NEHAWU] supports the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (POPCRU) national march tomorrow in Pretoria.

As NEHAWU, we believe that the demands by our sister union are both genuine and reasonable. POPCRU members who are police officers and correctional services guards have been subjected to horrible working conditions for far too long and these are workers who are expected to serve and protect our communities. We call on the criminal justice cluster to accede to their demands which they have been raising for the past ten years.

POPCRU will be marching for the implementation of the following demands:

• full implementation of all signed agreements and resolutions
• restructuring of the South African Police Service
• nationalisation of traffic
• proper tools of trade
• an end to police killings
• finalisation of grading of PSA Appointees levels, the
• finalisation of shift patterns
• payments of outstanding Occupation Specific Dispensation (OSD) in Correctional services and promotion policy

Twelve police officers have been killed in South Africa since the start of the year and over the past 20 years more than 160 police officers have been killed annually. We therefore, support the call by POPCRU for the Minister of Police, Minister Bheki Cele, to put up measure to ensure the safety of police officers.

Issued by NEHAWU