A crowd of 10111 emergency call centre workers brought traffic to a standstill in Pretoria central yesterday, as they demanded better salaries and improved working conditions.
The workers have threatened to shut down the call centre if their demands were not met.
“The 10111 employees would like to present this memorandum of demands to the honourable Minister of Police Fikile Mbalula, expressing our deepest frustration at the slow pace and the deliberate delaying tactics to implement the processes that will improve the terms and conditions of our employment,” Bethuel Nkuna, a representative of the 10111 employees said as he read out a memorandum.
He said the working conditions of the call centre were poor, compared to other government service call centres.
“As a result, a joint task team was established in February 2013 and it completed its work in April 2016. This task team eventually recommended that the employer commissions a job evaluation exercise to help determine the appropriate pay packages for 10111 employees. We demand the speedy implementation of that internal report that was completed by October 2016,” Nkuna said.
“10111 workers are demotivated because they are underpaid. They are overworked, and they experience dangerous stress levels because of these working conditions.”
Nkuna said instead of addressing their concerns, SAPS was now “unilaterally” deploying trained cops to man the highly critical call centres.
Mbalula was given 14 days to revert to the workers.