PSA fails to get health department out of ‘death trap’ building
The court says it has ‘no jurisdiction to entertain any dispute that concerns a work-related grievance’
The Public Servants Association (PSA) has failed in its bid to force the health department to move staff out of a building they claim is unsafe. The union approached the Labour Court in Johannesburg on an urgent basis‚ asking that staff at the Civitas building in Pretoria‚ the national headquarters of the health department‚ be relocated. The application followed a deadly fire in September that claimed the lives of three firefighters responding to a blaze at the Bank of Lisbon building in Johannesburg. That building housed three Gauteng provincial departments — health‚ co-operative governance, and human settlements — and was found to not be compliant with occupational health and safety standards. In their court application‚ the PSA said it believes the Civitas building is also unsafe, calling it a tragedy waiting to happen. Civitas staff have been protesting outside the headquarters intermittently since April‚ claiming the building is a “death trap”. However‚ the Labour Court dismiss...
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