The threat of leaving the notorious Cape Town prison unprotected and at the mercy of hardened criminals came after about 150 wardens picketed outside Pollsmoor on 11 October.

The disgruntled wardens issued a memorandum of demands, supported by the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru), that action be taken over incidents involving inmates stabbing Department of Correctional Services (DCS) officials, wage increases and overcrowding in the cells.

Popcru’s Western Cape provincial secretary, Pat Raolane, says inmates behave as if they are in a hotel, while union members are treated like waiters. He also said the stabbing of members is at a crisis level due to understaffing.

Popcru gave the DCS 14 days to respond, threatening a strike at Pollsmoor. The due date came and went with no sign of protest action.

The issues on Popcru’s list of demands were raised during the presentation of the Department of Justice and Correctional Service’s annual report before the portfolio committee on justice and correctional services on 13 October.

The committee heard from Emmerantia Cupido, spokesperson for the  Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services, that overcrowding enables violence in prisons and makes attacks on both inmates and officers more difficult to curb.

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Popcru’s Raolane told Daily Maverick on Thursday that the industrial action had been put on hold.

“The Popcru central executive committee conference will be taking place in Gauteng on 13 and 14 November. The provincial leadership of the Western Cape will also be attending.

“We will table and discuss the Pollsmoor issue at the conference so that they can assist us in making a decision. Besides the issue of Pollsmoor, there is also the issue of salary increments. We will consolidate all these issues at this committee meeting.”

After the conference, he said, there would be further engagements with the union’s leadership at a national level. He said they would come back to members and take it from there.

Prof Lukas Muntingh, director of the Dullah Omar Institute at the University of the Western Cape and co-founder of Africa Criminal Justice Reform, cautioned that leaving Pollsmoor unattended would place Popcru in a very precarious position.

He said if its members went on strike and prisoners were harmed as a result, the union could be held responsible. DM