MEMBERS of the National Education Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) in South Africa vowed today to continue their industrial action to make sure their wages keep pace with the soaring cost of living.

The strike, which began this week, is for a 10 per cent wage increase. The government has tabled 4.7 per cent.

Hoxani Baloyi, the Nehawu chairperson at Helen Joseph Hospital in Johannesburg, labelled the offer “a joke.”

The union has been hit with a court order banning them from “obstructing the rendering of health services to patients.”

Nehawu said it was not shaken by threats of further legal action.

The ANC government’s health minister Joe Phaahla has also announced he will be seeking legal action against the union after four patients died because they were unable to access healthcare at a hospital in Guateng province.

Mr Baloyi said: “As workers we cannot be intimidated because we are already losing.”

Nehawu has vowed to intensify the protests.

The South African Communist Party called on the government to “negotiate with workers in good faith.”

It added: “A powerful socialist movement of the workers and poor is essential to the success of the struggle to achieve the immediate interests and ultimate goals of the working class.”