The Health and Other Services Personnel Trade Union of SA on Friday demanded a public apology from KwaZulu-Natal Health MEC Sibongiseni Dhlomo for shutting down two radiotherapy machines at Durban's Addington Hospital. The MEC's reasons for the move were "absurd", it said. Dhlomo told reporters that when the department stopped paying the maintenance contract with Tecmed, which was a part of the original 2009 tender, he had not expected technicians to stop servicing the machines. He said on Thursday that his department would resume payments to Tecmed. Hospersa spokesperson Michelle Connolly said: "Firstly, what did he think was going to happen? Secondly, when the technicians stopped coming, his department failed to rectify the matter for the following five months." Connolly said hundreds of cancer patients per day did not receive their treatment and some of them were now dying.

• Read this report at News24

MPs should join other respected local and international groups to push for the decriminalisation of prostitution, rights activists told Parliament's joint committee on HIV/Aids on Friday. The committee met prostitutes to gauge their views on how to prevent the high level of HIV infection. A number of prostitutes gave MPs an insight into their lives. Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (Sweat) director Sally Shackleton pointed out that, "The Commission for Gender Equality just last week released a policy paper in support of decriminalisation. Cosatu has a resolution in support of decriminalisation. The WHO (World Health Organisation) in December released a policy brief that also recommended that states decriminalise sex work in order to address HIV and poor public health." It was not clear whether MPs were leaning in the direction of decriminalisation, but they acknowledged the fact that sex work had become hidden because it was a criminal offence.

• Read more at Times Live

Cosatu said on Friday it was disappointed by the SA Reserve Bank’s decision to keep the repo rate unchanged at five percent. "The committee has missed yet another opportunity to save and create jobs by giving a boost to growth and investment and to encourage emerging businesses," the federation’s spokesman Patrick Craven said. "Unemployed workers in particular will be dismayed at yet another conservative monetary policy decision, based on a groundless fear of rising inflation, when by far the biggest problem in our economy is the crisis of massive unemployment and widespread poverty." Craven took exception to SARB Governor Gill Marcus's call for restraint in wage increases, and her comments that the slow pace of employment in the private sector was undermined by the "fractious nature of recent wage negotiations".

• This report is at Sowetan Live

An unprotected strike at Lanxess chrome mine in Rustenburg has been resolved, the mine said on Friday. "This follows an initial agreement with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) representatives, achieved after negotiations held last night," spokeswoman Sibongile Dube said in a statement. Last Thursday, workers downed tools, demanding an annual performance increase which they claim the company's head office in London approved in 2011. Dube said the parties agreed to a one-off performance payment, which would be a set amount for all workers. North West Cosatu spokesman Solly Phetoe said workers would receive a bonus of R3,500 early next week after returning to work on Monday. In June, they would receive an extra two percent bonus if production targets were met.

• Read this report at Fin24

Eastern Cape teachers who planned to take the basic education department to court for non-payment have been paid, the department said on Friday. The application by 25 temporary teachers was due to be heard in the Grahamstown High Court on Friday, but the matter was heard in chambers and adjourned, department spokesman Loyiso Pulumani said. The teachers, from six schools in Grahamstown, opted to take the department to court after it failed to pay their salaries. They were each owed between R36,000 and R90,000.

• Read more at Mail & Guardian

SA’s main auto union, the National Union of Metalworkers of SA, on Friday threatened to “halt production” at a Volkswagen factory to protest against the dismissal of it its members. “We call on the Volkswagen South Africa oligarchy to immediately stop these dismissals of workers. If VWSA fails to adhere to this demand, we will be forced to halt production until this impasse is resolved,” the union said.

• This short report is at Business Report

Cosatu Gauteng secretary Dumisani Dakile told protesters gathered outside Cosatu headquarters on Friday that the Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD) had asked for an upfront payment of R2m for today’s e-toll protest to go ahead. But JMPD spokesperson Chief Superintendent Wayne Minnaar said it was R200,000 and not R2m. "We have never paid money in order to exercise our constitutional right. We are not prepared to pay even half a cent ... let them go to hell," said Dakile. According to Dakile, Metro police also told Cosatu it had a sworn statement stating there would be violence at the march. "We have had many marches, peaceful marches. That is their plan to stop us," said Dakile. Cosatu's application to embark on a drive-slow protest on the city's highways was dismissed by the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court on Thursday.

• Read more at Mail & Guardian
• See too, ‘Patience with authorities running out, says Cosatu’, at The Citizen
• And also, ‘Metro police dispute Cosatu's R2m claim’, at News24

Sowetan reports that financial records show that the SA Post Office Group (Sapo) has recently used a labour broker, despite Sapo CE Chris Hlekane having told Parliament and Sowetan that the parastatal had cut ties with labour brokers. “No, we are not using temporary staff. We are not going back to the labour brokers,” Hlekane said on 19 March. Records show that Sapo paid labour broker Vulavulani Technologies R661,060 on 2 May and an additional amount of R1.7m was paid to the same firm on 15 May. Sapo said the labour broker was hired as a stopgap measure due to the strike and dismissals that recently took place and that “we will terminate our relationship with the labour broking firm as soon as we have filled the vacant positions.” SA Postal Workers’ Union (Sapwu) spokesman Tutu Mokoena said Hlekane’s conflicting statements showed he was a “two-faced boss”, who was “clueless about his company.”

• Read more on page 24 of Friday’s Sowetan

Allan Seccombe reports that Rand Refinery is developing new strategies to increase its sales of finished gold products, meeting the government’s push for greater value addition to its mineral resources. The strategies will not, however, create the thousands of jobs the state wants from its beneficiation drive. Beneficiation is a key strategic imperative within the Department of Mineral Resources and forms part of the policies contained in the New Growth Path, which has a target of creating 5-million new jobs by 2020.

• Read more at BDLive

Mail & Guardian reports that President Jacob Zuma, when addressing the National House of Traditional Leaders in Parliament on Thursday, warned that wildcat strikes have the potential to wreck the South African economy and impoverish the country. "I'm saying our economy, which is resilient, is facing that kind of a challenge," he said. "The tension in the industry will not help the economy of the country. I'm stressing the point because, as leaders, there are some responsibilities we could undertake; we could impoverish our country without realising it." He said he was not opposed to workers' right to strike, but the issue was how it was done. "Do we do it to make others lose their jobs or so that others could get jobs?"

• Read this report at Mail & Guardian Online
• See too, ‘Zuma stages timely wage crisis intervention’, at Miningmx