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Cape Town - Would you risk your life on a regular basis and work unsociable hours for R8 000 a month or, after years of training and experience, do the same job for R15 000?
Terry Bell raises this question in his latest Labour Wrap. He points out that this is the lower and average pay range for firefighters, two of whom died last week, fighting a fire in Johannesburg.
Bell says that the question arose following his Inside Labour column last week where he compared the pay and conditions of nurses and teachers to those of MPs and cabinet ministers. But he points out that it was not only firefighters who wanted their voices heard on the topic of pay and conditions. Paramedics also complained. And their starting pay is lower even than that of firefighters.
Yet many of the complaints, says Bell, related as much to staff shortages and poor or non-existent equipment and vehicles. Firefighters in Johannesburg, for example, maintained that there were insufficient fire engines while, in Cape Town, there were enough vehicles and equipment, but staff shortages were listed as the major problem.
This meant firefighters having to work 48 hours of overtime every month. Bell notes that while such overtime may fatten pay packets, it plays havoc with the health, social and family lives of the men and women in the service.
He also points out that paramedics have lodged similar complaints — and they are often abused by the public when ambulances arrive late to a call out. Yet, according to a station manager in one area, only five or six of the 16 ambulances needed is ever available. Posts are also frozen, meaning that there are staff shortages.
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As the unions continue to battle to improve working conditions, Bell says there are also wider signs of hope; of people trying to find solutions. On the vexed question of housing, for example, University of Cape Town’s Professor David Dewar, a specialist in built environment, and architect and artist Paul Andrew have drawn up an innovative, “bottom up” proposal for dealing with the housing crisis.
The NGO, Sustainable Energy Africa has also produced a detailed report on the state of energy in South African cities. Bell has offered to make these available by email in pdf format, to anyone interested. You can order one or both through editor@fin24.com.
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* Terry Bell is a political, economic and labour analyst. Views expressed are his own. Follow him on twitter @telbelsa.
