The aftermath of the national strike by public servants in June and July this year is starting to have a negative impact on the employees who are in debt, following the deduction of money from salaries as per the "no work, no pay" principle.

Since the process began last month, Mirror can confirm that there were several incidents where employees collapsed and fainted after they received almost nothing as salary. This happened to employees who are in serious debt due to house bonds, car installments and loans.

A female teacher was admitted to the Donald Frazer Hospital for a week, after she collapsed at the Auto Teller Machine where she went to collect her monthly salary. "The woman, who is working as a clerk in the department of education in Limpopo, fainted after she saw her statement which was on a minus number, meaning that she had no money available for withdrawal," says our source.

Mirror has received several calls from concerned teachers who believe that they are still going to face a similar situation as the process of deduction is continuing this month. "We are appealing to you to raise this matter with the department as we are seriously affected by their move and it is already affecting our work. The timing is also bad because we are supposed to prepare learners for the final exams."

According to one of the teachers, they tried to raise this issue with their unions, with no success. "We appeal to our employer to address this problem before is too late as many people might commit suicide because of stress," says one caller.

The acting government spokesperson in Limpopo, Mogale Nchabeleng, says it is true that they are busy deducting money from employees who were involved in the national strike. "This process started last month and it is expected to end in October for the majority of employees and November for the teachers as we will only start deducting money from them this month. Although the money to be deducted will vary from individual to individual, we are deducting roughly about R1 400 to R1 500 from each employee per month, in three stages, so that we can cover about seventeen days of the days where they were engaged in the strike," says Nchabeleng.

Asked if he was aware that there are employees who are earning nothing because of these deductions and if this cannot affect their performance, Nchabeleng says: "We do have an employee assistance programme that they can use in order to help them cope with this situation. This is the principle of no work no pay and it must apply to everybody who was involved in the strike, although the impact will differ from person to person as per their earnings and debts," says Nchabeleng.

Mabilu Mokwalala, Cosatu chairperson in the province, says they are discouraging any abnormalities by the department towards their members. "The department is not expected to make deductions that can leave our members with nothing to take home. We therefore encourages our members to go to their staff sections to check if they can face such a problem, so that they inform us instead of waiting for the pay day where they will be seriously affected," says Mokwalakwala.