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Does Sadtu know what “workaholic schools” means?

Yesterday, the Sowetan reported that Mugwena Maluleke, general secretary of the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu), said in a statement that the union wants to “… encourage teachers to … promote a workaholic schooling environment…” I wonder if he actually knows what he said?


According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a workaholic is a “compulsive worker”. In the same dictionary, one finds compulsive as describing someone who is not able to control themselves, as in a “compulsive eater”, which has very negative connotations – have you ever seen a compulsive eater whose eating habits don’t lead to a multitude of problems?

The same is true, I believe, for compulsive workers. And the stats back me up.

In a Business Day article published last year, at least 52% of participants – 67% in South Africa - in a global Accenture survey said they have turned down a job offer that would have affected their existing work-life balance. They realise that if they don’t have a healthy balance between their work lives and their off periods – and so suffer from chronic stress - they are going to feel the consequences - fast. According to Health24, these consequences include:

• High blood pressure,
• Heart disease,
• Allergies, hives and hay fever,
• Asthma,
• Migraines,
• Irritable bowel syndrome,
• Eczema, and
• psoriasis.

Do we really want our children to become workaholics at school-going age, considering these could be the consequences?

Lia Marus is the editor of HR Pulse. She has a BA in French, Italian and Linguistics from UCT, an MA in translation from Wits and a Postgraduate Diploma in Management from the Wits Business School. She is currently studying towards her LLB through Unisa. Lia started her career off in corporate communications, where she worked as a sub-editor, researcher and marketing coordinator. She then heeded the call of the publishing world and went into the business-to-business publishing field. She worked as a sub-editor as well as a chief sub-editor. Before joining ITWeb, she managed an HR guidebook at a leading international publishing company.