MBABANE:Magistrate Courts are allegedly operating with qualified Clerks who work as volunteers and this,means Government is forcing them to work for free.
Some of the Clerks told this Swaziland News that,they have been working for over four(4) years without salaries hoping to eventually get employed.
“We are financially struggling, everyday we report to work 8am-5pm like other employed civil servants but, without salaries”, said one of the Clerks.
A lawyer who sent a message to editor Zweli Martin Dlamini described the plight of the Clerks as a painful situation.
Public Service Minister Mabulala Maseko had not responded at the time of compiling this report.
Reached for comments on Tuesday morning,Mduduzi Gina,the Secretary General of the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland(TUCOSWA) said,volunteering in the context of the Clerks’ situation,amounts to slavery and condemned Government for manipulating their desperation and forcing them to work without salaries.
“Volunteering one's services is a form of desperation.It is in fact a form of slavery on the recipient of those services as it opens the “worker” to exploitation as they remain not covered by the protective labour laws.It's worse if it is done by the Government,as long as it can be proven that the person had rendered services in a work environment, that person must be remunerated for work done.This is the kind of tendency that has resulted on the Government to subject its workers to a probation period of two years instead of the legislated 3 and 6 months respectively.Even if that said Volunteering is part of the academic necessities of the workers, they must be paid agreed stipends in the same manner that apprenticeship artisans are treated in the private sector”, said the TUCOSWA Secretary General.
Mbabane Magistrates Court.