NEHAWU has brought a case to compel the health department to give the workers permanent jobs

Community health workers picketed outside the Labour Court in Johannesburg on Tuesday where their employment status is being litigated.

The National Education, Health and Allied Workers' Union (NEHAWU) is seeking to review a bargaining council arbitration award that ruled against the union's application to compel the Department of Health to give community health workers permanent employment.

Currently the workers - about 50,000 across the country - are on recurring fixed-term contracts, the union says. This has been the case for many years, despite various promises to make them permanent.

NEHAWU national spokesperson Lwazi Nkolonzi said the workers should enjoy the same benefits as permanent public servants.

Advocate Garth Hulley, for NEHAWU, said no justifiable reasons had been given for denying community health workers permanent employment.

Advocate Arthur Maisela, representing the health department, argued that workers had agreed that their services were only needed temporarily when they signed their contracts. He said their fixed-term contracts were governed by collective agreement. He said unlike permanent workers in the department, the money for employing community workers was dependent on conditional grants.

Solly Phetoe, general secretary of COSATU, which is supporting NEHAWU's court bid, spoke after the court adjourned. He said, "I was in court listening to the argument of the Department of Health. It does not carry water." He invoked section 198 of the Labour Relations Act that regulates when workers on fixed term contracts are deemed to be permanent.

SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila was also present to show support for the workers. He said the rights of workers were being ignored by a government that protected the capitalist system with liberal policies.

Nomhlolo Fene, a counsellor at a health clinic in Vanderbijlpark, told GroundUp, that community workers had been fighting to be made permanent since 2008. Four years ago she was given permanent employment and it has changed her life.

"Now I have medical aid, housing allowance, I can maintain my three children, and life has become easier."

Acting judge AJ Cook reserved judgment. (GroundUp will cover the arguments in more depth once judgment is delivered.)