UPDATE: Game over for Pretoria zoo strike
“We honestly expected the implementations as soon as possible, however, the minister said there are lots to process.”
Workers at the Pretoria Zoo returned to work on Tuesday after the Minister of Environmental Affairs responded to their memorandum of demands.
National Trade Union Congress, Frans Rasethe said: “The minister responded to our grievances and promised to attend to them.”
The union’s grievances were about salary discrepancies, better working conditions, medical aid and other benefits.
He said the response of the minister was the reason they called the strike off.
ALSO READ: Koala’s death ‘not linked’ to zoo strike
Rasethe said they were hopeful the minister would keep her promise.
He said the minister had appointed a team to do a job grading and evaluation before certain grievances could be attended to.
“We will keep on following up with the department on how far they are with implementations’.”
This comes after the union alleged that National Zoological Gardens of South Africa in Pretoria was struggling without its regular staff who were on strike.
National Trade Union Congress affiliated staff had been on a protected strike since 12 June since being transferred from the National Research Foundation to the Pretoria Zoo.
“When we were transferred, the employee did not consider a lot of things such as salary discrepancies, for better working conditions, medical aid and other benefits,” Rasethe said.
He said while zoo management was allegedly dragging its feet on meeting the employees’ demands, things were taking a turn for the worst inside the zoo.
ALSO READ: VIDEO: ‘Our animals are fine’, says Pretoria zoo
“While we have been on strike, there is a lot of things going wrong in the zoo as a result of most of us (employees) being outside (protesting),” he said.
Rasethe said zoo management tried to close the gaps by hiring student interns.
“There was an incident where an inexperienced driver crashed a zoo vehicle into the elephant enclosure.
“This is a difficult job and operations are suffering due to a lack of qualified employees.”
He said animals were not being fed or treated accordingly as evidenced when a koala died last Saturday.
“We lost Willie the koala, who could have lived longer if we, the experienced people were there to take care of him.”
He said because experienced staffers could not take care of the animal while on strike, “we lost the koala”.
“These interns did not take care of the animal accordingly and that is why the animal died,” alleged Rasethe, adding that there was chaos inside the zoo while the strike was going on.
He said employees not part of their union were being overburdened with work in the zoo.
National Zoological Garden’s spokesperson Angeliné Schwan said Willie died while under the care of veterinarians in the zoo hospital.
“The death of the koala at the National Zoological Garden is believed to have been caused by a chronic liver condition but we are still awaiting histopath reports from our veterinary department.”
She said the koala had a life expectancy of 13 years and Willie was 13-and-a-half years old already.
Schwan said the care of animals at the zoo was taken very seriously.
ALSO READ: Pretoria zoo dispels fears over hippo enclosure
She said there was currently one conservator, one animal attendant and a student present in the koala section.
“Assistance is available from other sections when need be. There is no link between the death of the koala and the striking National Trade Union Congress. The welfare of our animals is of critical and ongoing importance to us.”
“Our veterinarians do daily checks on all the animals to ensure that the welfare of our animals has not been compromised by the strike.”
Schwan also refuted that the majority of the zoo’s staff members were not on strike.
“The operations at the zoo are running smoothly at this time,” she said.
Do you have more information about the story? Please send us an email to editorial@rekord.co.za or phone us on 083 625 4114.
For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites:
For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram
