JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Police fired rubber bullets on protesting teachers throwing bricks and stones, nurses tore down a hospital gate and the government sent army medics into hospitals as a nationwide civil servants' strike for higher wages took hold in South Africa on Thursday.
On the second day of the strike, the government ordered the army medical corps to treat patients who have been abandoned by medical workers.
Defense Department spokesman Ndivhuwo Mabaya said the army medical staff was deployed to several hospitals around Johannesburg and KwaZulu-Natal on the east coast after the health minister, Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi, requested assistance.
Mabaya said the medical teams are accompanied by soldiers in case of a violent reaction from strikers.
Earlier Thursday teachers in the red T-shirts of their union scattered as police fired to stop them from blocking a stretch of highway during a protest in Johannesburg.
At least one officer was seen being taken from the scene bleeding from the head. Nomusa Cembi, the spokeswoman for the South African Democratic Teacher’s Union, said six teachers were wounded.
There was also scattered violence outside some hospitals. Nurses tore down a gate at one Johannesburg hospital and striking workers were keeping their non-striking colleagues and patients from entering hospitals around the country.
Col. Lungelo Dlamini, a police spokesman, said police had no further information on violence associated with the strike.
The indefinite strike was also delaying trials because court stenographers were not at their desks.
Unions are demanding an 8.6 percent wage increase and a 1,000 rand ($137) housing allowance. The government is offering a 7 percent increase plus 700 rands ($96) for housing. In a statement Thursday, the government said it could not afford to offer more.
"It’s a choice between improving the wages of state employees and continuing to address the service delivery needs of poor communities and the unemployed," the government said.
South Africa has been hit hard by the global recession, losing 900,000 jobs last year on top of already high unemployment.
The government condemned the scattered violence.
"While the majority of public servants have protested peacefully, the disruption of classes and health facilities is totally unacceptable and will not be tolerated," read a government statement. "Those who break the laws must not expect any sympathy from the law enforcement agencies."
Cembi, whose teachers’ union is the largest civil service union, told The Associated Press the strikes would continue.
"This will continue until we get the response from government that we need," she said.
The Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, Thabo Makgoba, called for the government and workers to come together to end the strike quickly, saying people were suffering. Makgoba also called for hospital staff and other essential workers to return to work immediately.
"How do we look at our society and say, ‘let not your hearts be troubled,’ when patients needing high levels of care are without proper nursing staff and students are told they must provide for their own education?" the archbishop said in a statement.
