Earlier this year, a University official racially attacked workers. During the process of the investigation, the following letter was written to the University's vice chancellor.
End All Segregation and Discrimination on Our Campus
An open letter to the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Loyiso Nongxa
An open letter to the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Loyiso Nongxa
The Wits Workers Solidarity Committee (WWSC) (an alliance of outsourced workers, students, academic, and support staff) has decided to respond publicly to your most recent letter to us so that we can do what the university's management has thus far failed to: inform the broader university committee of the issues at stake in the allegations by workers that they were allegedly racially abused by a senior university official, accused of such heinous racial humiliation as calling them 'k---rs', 'baboons' and threatening to cut off male workers' genitals.
In your letter to us, you tried to explain why you do not think that the university community has a right to know about the university's investigation and the decision to institute charges against the university official. While we appreciate the legal position you have adopted, it remains our view that the university's management has not handled the matter timeously, nor has it deal with the matter in a sufficiently transparent manner given the seriousness of the accusations. Nonetheless, we welcome your confirmation that the university official will face disciplinary action on the 13th and 14th of June 2011.
But, the disciplinary hearing against the individual is only one part of the struggle against discrimination on our campus. The Wits Workers Solidarity Committee calls on all members of the university community to demand an end to the discrimination and segregation faced by workers on a daily basis on our campus. Institutional practices that violate the dignity of so-called 'outsourced' workers include, and are not limited, to the following:
· Barring workers from using certain entry points which students and staff are allowed to use.
· Barring workers from using public toilets and communal areas like the library lawns.
· Barring workers from meeting with their unions on campus, like staff of the university.
Treating workers who spend each and every working day on our campus as if they are mere 'visitors' is to treat them as if they are second-class citizens. No one who believes in equality and dignity for all who work and study on Wits campus can stand idly by while these injustices continue
The Wits Workers Solidarity Committee thus demands:
· That the disciplinary hearing reach a considered verdict with due speed, and that the outcome of the process be communicated to the entire university community transparently and timeously.
· That should the accused be found guilty he must cease to be employed at our university and should also be rendered ineligible to be employed in any capacity at Wits in the future.
· That all the workers the accused fired for challenging him when he racially discriminated against and humiliated them be reinstated and be paid compensatory back pay for income lost.
· That Wits management put an end to all the institutionalised discriminatory practices against workers noted above, and that
· The University initiate a process to establish a general minimum conditions contract binding all companies it enters into business with. This must take into account legislation pertaining to health and occupational safety, labour relations, and stipulate a minimum wage below which amount no company may pay a worker employed at Wits.
Wits Workers Solidarity Committee
