We noted with relief that the majority of school-based therapists had already received their OSD back payments. We wish to thank Mr Tinus du Preez for his active involvement and daily contact with GDE officials in order to expedite the payment process.
The Gauteng office has been inundated with telephone calls, e-mails and faxes from therapists asking questions about the amounts paid out, comparing, reporting that they have not been paid, etc.
The purpose of this communication is to address therapists' concerns, respond to questions and indicate the way forward. You are kindly requested to take note of the following:
- According to GDE 192 therapists have already been paid. The outstanding 125 therapists should receive their back payments within the next two weeks. Some therapists have already been included in last night's GDE salary run and they may start getting notices of payment from Monday.
Therapists who have not received OSD payments by the end of June, must please send an e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. A copy of the June salary advice must be attached. The NAPTOSA office will not respond to any queries regarding non-payment before 28 June. - Therapists'™ June salary advices do not reflect the new OSD salaries. Back payments were only calculated up to 31 May 2013 as GDE had hoped to be in time for the June salary run, which did not happen. July 2013 salary advices should reflect the new OSD salary notches. Backdated payment for June will also be included in the July salary.
- During the OSD workshops NAPTOSA undertook to assist its members by checking each therapist's salary. Attached is a form that NAPTOSA members (school-based therapists) can complete and forward to the Gauteng office. However, these forms can only be completed and faxed to the Gauteng office once therapists have received their July 2013 salary advices with their new OSD notches.
The Gauteng office cannot check any salary or respond to any query unless the salary query form is completed and the July 2013 salary advice is attached. Verification of salaries will only commence during the last week of July. - We are concerned that there may have been a problem with the translation of post level 2 therapists' salaries. It seems as if some post level 2 therapists may have been translated to Education Therapist Grade 3 posts, instead of Chief Education Therapist Grade 1 posts. As we want to deal with this as soon as possible, all post level 2 therapists are invited to e-mail a 2013 salary advice to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. as soon as possible. We will submit a list of all post level 2 therapists to GDE for verification.
The Gauteng office will, therefore, not respond to individual queries from post level 2 therapists until such time that we have met with GDE officials. - Some therapists are querying the fact that the back payments of more “senior†therapists (therapists with more years' service) were less than less experienced therapists' payments. Please note that therapists on lower salary notches will get a higher amount than therapists on a higher salary notches. You are reminded, for example, of the fact that the salary of a post level 1 therapist on salary notch 7.1, or notch 7.6 or notch 7.14, will be translated/has been translated to the same new OSD notch. It is, therefore, correct if a less experienced therapist got a bigger amount than a more experienced therapist.
As we are inviting therapists to submit the attached salary query form and July 2013 salary advice to us at the end of July, we will not be responding to any queries based on any comparison of salaries. - Some therapists have asked the Gauteng office to determine whether their back payment has been calculated correctly. We wish to state categorically that the Persal system is programmed in such a way that all back dated payments are calculated correctly. If an individual's salary has been translated to the correct notch, members can assume that the back payment will be correctly calculated.
The challenge is to ensure that a therapist's salary has been translated correctly. That we will do at the end of July when we can see in black and white to which notch the salary has been translated. The NAPTOSA Gauteng office will not respond to any request to check whether back payments have been calculated correctly.