Parliamentary business ground to a halt on Tuesday as striking legislature staff stormed into the public gallery of the National Assembly during a sitting.

The sitting came to an abrupt end after workers started singing and dancing, drowning out the voice of the House chairperson.

After the sitting was suspended, workers vowed to remain put until their demands for, among others, better performance bonuses were met.

“Nothing is going to move today until our demands are met,” National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) parliamentary chairperson Sthembiso Tembe told workers.

“If Parliament knows what’s good for them, they will give us our performance bonuses today. If [Gengezi] Mgidlana [secretary to Parliament] knows what’s good for him he must come to address us.”

Earlier in the morning, several committee meetings were disrupted and as a result adjourned.

About 40 members of Nehawu burst into a briefing on the drought afflicting swathes of the country, and said they would not allow it to continue.

“We do not like what we are doing, but we do not know what else to do,” one, who refused to be named, announced as senior government official Ikalafeng Kgakatsi was informing Members of Parliament about looming maize shortages in South Africa and neighbouring states.

The Nehawu members sang and toyi-toyied in the cramped committee room V226, until the chairperson of the committee, Machwene Semenya, adjourned it at around 10am.

She pointedly said she was not ending the meeting because of the disruption but because the National Assembly was scheduled to commence a sitting.

“We are supposed to go for a sitting at 10am, I want to take this opportunity to adjourn this meeting. It is not because of what is happening.”

Later, after the sitting was suspended, Semena said: “The sitting has been postponed until further notice. We do not know when.”

Committee member Mandla Mandela snapped cellphone pictures of the protesting staff but said what they were doing was unacceptable.

“You cannot while you are fighting for your right deny others their right. It is totally unacceptable that we are not allowed to do our work,” he said.

Nehawu resumed its strike for better employment conditions and salaries on Monday after accusing management of failing to meet a deadline of Friday to make proposals to a task team on settling a dispute on bonuses.