The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (POPCRU) welcomes and firmly stand behind the ruling in the Safety and Security Sectoral Bargaining Council (SSSBC), indicating that the bargaining council has jurisdiction in conciliating the dispute lodged by labour  looking into the matter of the 10111 members’ rank translation.

As POPCRU, we had declared a dispute and referred the matter to the SSSBC to be heard by an independent arbitrator; this after the employer raised a preliminary issue that the Council does not have jurisdiction of conciliating a matter of mutual interest, which is the promotion of members to level 7.

The ruling, made on the 29^th of May 2017, clearly states that the SSSBC has jurisdiction to conciliate on the dispute referred to it by labour and that the preliminary point raised by the respondent (employer) is hereby dismissed.

We are now surprised by the opportunists who continue to raise false hopes on employees by encouraging that through marching, they will get level 7 promotion while remaining ignorant of and disregarding the legal process which is still taking its course.

This is typical hypocrisy as it is not in the best interest of workers, and exposes these opportunists as people who lead on the basis of lies.

POPCRU remains the only union within the criminal justice cluster that has fought for the bringing about of transformation within the SAPS, and is still committed to this noble objective.

10111 is a national key point as all calls of the country go through this platform, and if the SAPS wants to change the conditions of service, that matter is for bargaining council to deal with, inclusive of all its nitty-gritties.

We therefore call on all our members within 10111 not to be misled by wasting their energy going to the streets at the compromise of unfolding processes within the SSSBC.

Issued by POPCRU on 06/06/2017