The involvement of teacher unions in the implementation of the Employment of Educators' Act 76 of 1998

Abstract

This study investigates the involvement of teacher unions in the implementation of the Employment of Educators Act (Act 76 of 1998) at school level. Union involvement at school level is still characterized by controversy when it comes to the filling of promotional posts and the redeployment of educators. The inappropriate involvement of unions by ignoring their observer status, may lead to the infringement of educators’ rights if it goes unchecked by the DoE. This may consequently result in poor performance by educators who may feel discriminated against during the redeployment and the filling of promotional posts. Teacher unions have the responsibility to ensure that educators are not victimized. If unions abdicate this responsibility and attend to only key union members when promotional posts are filled, they will cease to be effective unions. Unions who protect non-dedicated and unqualified educators from redeployment will lose the respect of the teaching fraternity, and eventually their membership numbers will dwindle. This was a qualitative and exploratory study based on the grounded theoretical approach. It was conducted in Districts 11 and 12 of the Gauteng Department of Education using focus groups and one-on-one interviews with the various stakeholders from the Department of Education, and leaders of the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union, and the National Association of Professional Teachers’ Organizations in South Africa. The findings indicate that during the filling of promotional posts, the unions tend to use undue influence to have their members promoted, to the detriment of deserving and better qualified educators. During the redeployment process they protect their members against principals who declared them in excess. It was reported that principals make use of the redeployment processes to get rid of educators who are often absent from school because of union work during school hours. If the Department of Education does not seriously take control of the situation in respect of the filling of promotional posts and the redeployment of educators, then the teacher unions will take over.