University Worker's Charter

This Charter was presented on 6 October 2015 to the management of Wits and UJ.

The hands of workers built the buildings, laid the roads and produced all the goods in this society. The workers of today and the mothers and fathers who were the workers of yesterday make society possible.

Universities were built using the labour of many people. They run each day on the labour of many people. There are cleaners, teachers, caterers, maintenance workers, technicians, administrative workers, gardeners and more. Without them, there would be no university.
From 1999, universities across South Africa began the process of outsourcing workers. The University of Cape Town was the first to retrench and outsource workers, and run the university like a business. Hundreds of workers were retrenched and workers’ wages and benefits were cut. Their working conditions also deteriorated dramatically.

At Wits University, for example, 613 workers were retrenched and only 250 re-employed by outsourced companies. Typically, cleaners’ wages dropped from R2 227 per month to about R1 200. Workers lost their benefits and moreover, as Wits employees, workers’ children were entitled to free education, which was taken away through the process of outsourcing, slamming shut the doors of learning and culture in the faces of workers’ families. Union membership and union organising among outsourced workers was seriously weakened after workers were kicked out of the public sector and divided according to companies.

Outsourced workers enjoy few benefits: they have no medical aid, travel allowances, housing and maternity benefits or pensions. Workers have been denied their status as members of the university community. Workers have been banned from meeting on campus and intimidated and disciplined for attending meetings and rallies. At Wits, for example, workers were forced to use separate entrances, toilet facilities and banned from using open spaces. Workers are also subjected to racism and verbal abuse.

Workers are forced to live an intolerable life of insecurity and hardship. Many workers must leave home at 5am, walk and wait for transport in the dark, risking their safety. Some workers surive on the food thrown away in the canteen. Workers will never be able to send their children to the university that they maintain. It is a life of worrying if you will be able to feed and clothe and school your children. It is a life of worrying what will happen when the company contract ends with the university. What will happen to you and your family if your lose your job?
Workers gave their sweat for ten and twenty and thirty years – only to get chucked out through retrenchments and outsourcing so that the university could save money. Outsourcing continues to reproduce apartheid in universities today.

What could and should a public university look like?
Treating workers like human beings is not possible in a university run like a capitalist business. The university must be a place where people can work and learn and teach as human beings. The university is part of the public sector. The public sector must be about what people need. The public sector today can be like seeds of a different future – a future where everything is collectively owned and organised under workers and community control according to what people need.

Everyone whose labour contributes to the university should have:
• A living wage
• A secure job
• Decent, safe and healthy working conditions
• Democratic collective organisation so that they can speak and act together
• A safe place where they can leave children who need care
• Access to the education facilities
The labour of so many workers doing so many jobs is necessary so that the university can run every day. The university must make sure it runs with respect for the workers it needs.
We demand an end to all outsourcing at public sector institutions and the direct employment of everyone working without loss of jobs.
No workers should bear the costs and consequences of the university’s decision to outsource.
There Must be Job Security for All
• There must be permanent jobs for all workers.
• University management must take all steps necessary to ensure that all workers who have lost their jobs as a result of the outsourcing of “non-essential” services are reinstated.
• All workers jobs must be secured if there is a change in contracted companies, or if there is a change in the contract with an existing company. Workers who lost their jobs when contracts changed or were terminated, must be reinstated.
• The sporadic employment of casual labourers must be rendered impermissible in terms of the rules of the university. No worker should be discarded merely because their services are not immediately vital for the smooth running of the university.

A Fair Wage is a Living Wage

• Everyone who works at the university, regardless of who employs them, should have a living wage. In solidarity with the struggle of Marikana workers, we support the demand for a living wage of R12,500.
• As a first step, we demand a restoration of wage rates to equivalent levels to those reached immediately prior to outsourcing, once inflation over the last 15 years has been factored in.
• The university management must take responsibility for setting the wage levels of workers, even if workers are employed under outsourced companies.
All Workers Must Have Full Access to the University, including Benefits that Come with Working at a University
• All workers should receive the same benefits as academic staff. No one is non-essential; no one deserves to be treated as if they are expendable. These benefits include but are not limited to, pension, medical, housing and leave benefits, as well as access to university transport.
• The right to full access to the library, including the ability to borrow books from the library. The right to full access to computer facilities.
• The right to free tuition for any worker and worker’s child studying at the university. Support for workers to complete their schooling education must be provided.
• Child care facilities must be provided for all workers on campus.
• All workers must be given access to toilets, kitchens and tea rooms closest to where they work on campus.
• All workers must be given preference to job and other career advancement opportunities. This process must be made transparent to workers.
Freedom to Participate and Associate as Members of the University Community
• Workers are members of the university community.
• Workers have the right to gather, meet and organise on campus collectively at their PLACE of employment.
• The right of workers to associate with each other for the purposes of defending and advancing their rights must receive institutional protection at the university. This includes the right to and time off to attend union and other organisational meetings.
• Workers’ organisations and representatives of their choice must be recognised by the university and other employers.
• The right to demonstrate, march, picket or strike on and near the campus without threat or fear of disciplinary measures or dismissal must be guaranteed. No one should be penalised if they refuse to cross a picket line, or refuse to do the work of another worker who is on strike.
• There must be democratic decision-making in the university that involves the whole university community. Workers must be represented on the highest decision-making bodies of the university.
Access to Information
• All information pertaining to the allocation of funds by the university, as well as all other budgetary matters, must be made accessible by management to workers.
• All information affecting workers directly, such as the contracts signed between the university and the companies, must be made fully accessible to any and all workers.
Dignified, Safe and Healthy Working Conditions for All
• The intrinsic dignity of all members of the university community must be respected.
• The university must prohibit any and all forms of unequal treatment against workers.
• All workers must be supplied with the necessary protective clothing and training as well as adequate changing, ablution and rest facilities.
• Workers must have the right to refuse any unsafe and unhealthy work without fear of disciplinary action.

Protest Agaist Fees and Outsourcing

NUMSA BACKS #WitsFeesMustFall STRUGGLE BY WITS STUDENTS

Friday 16 October 2015

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, on behalf of its 365 000 members, fully backs the ongoing class struggle by Wits University students. We are opposed to the 10,5% fee hikes and continued commodification of education, a reflection of how aspects of the 1994 negotiated political settlement are wrecking our society’s public goods. The policy of fiscal austerity, agreed to with the International Monetary Fund and world financiers as early as December 1993, has taken on new dimensions, with Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene failing to grant our university students the tuition and survival funds long promised our up-and-coming leaders.

This ongoing struggle is happening at the backdrop of deepening levels of poverty, unemployment and inequality, mostly affecting Black African working communities, as a result of the disastrous and failed neoliberal policy choices being championed by the fast-fading ANC/SACP governing Alliance.

Without better national subsidies, Wits’ excessive tuition hikes are going to be a huge socio-economic burden to the workers, who are responsible for the education of their children. Already, workers are feeling the pinch as a result of Apartheid colonial wages they are being paid; but most importantly they have a burden of taking care of the vast army of the unemployed in our Townships; squatter and former Bantustan areas. The out-sourced workers at Wits are a clear example, with Vice Chancellor Adam Habib refusing to undo the damage of prior administrations, and heeding the October 6 Movement’s demand that the lowest-paid people at Wits be “in-sourced” and paid a living wage.

The struggles by students for free, compulsory and public education, as promised in the Freedom Charter, will also require launching an offensive on the neoliberal trajectory of the ANC, that denies the entire working class and poor citizenry of our country access to essential basic goods, especially quality health-care and free education.

The working class and youth coalition not only played a key role in dismantling the Apartheid system, but also regularly swamped the streets of our country to reject the mis-named Growth; Employment and Redistribution Strategy (GEAR) imposed on the working class of South Africa by the ANC in 1996, and worsened with the stewardship of the aloof President Thabo Mbeki after 1999.

The continued failure by the ANC/SACP governing Alliance to deliver free education will have the effect of reproducing cheap, uneducated Black African labour in the interests of the exploiting class and their friends in imperialist and foreign-owned Stock Exchanges in New York, London and Melbourne.

We call on the fighting students not to soften their demands, but to continue supporting Wits workers’ fight against out-sourcing, and to remain resolute until the State concedes to their demands, and so many others being tabled by our working class. The lack of political will by the governing ANC/SACP to roll-out free education, as promised in successive elections, should be a wake-up call to the working-class youth to forge a Youth-Worker Alliance within the emerging United Front, in order to force the State to concede to their demands and aspirations.

As Numsa, we remain committed to jointly work with all progressive youth, student and worker formations towards the realisation of all the key demands of the Freedom Charter. It is through collective actions and struggle we make sure that our demands are met. Now is the time for all these formations to tear down the walls erected by neoliberalism, which serves to divide students/youth struggles and workers on the shopfloor.

Contact:

Sizwe Dlamini

Regional Secretary

Jack Charles Buizendenhout (Wits Central)

M: 071 874 8228

E: sizwed@numsa.org.za

We call for the decolonisation of Wits University

Student Memorandum
We demand the impossible simply because the university has been impossible to us. The time for reasonable demands has lapsed. The impossible is possible!
We call for the decolonisation of Wits University. We call for white monopoly capital to fall!
We demand:
1. No student at this university must pay fees for education.
2. Adam Habib must resign.
3. Outsourcing of workers must end today.
4. University building names must be changed to collectively agreed upon names.
5. There will be no negotiations with Habib over fees.
6. The SRC must be reorganised to give students more representation and proportionate representation on council.
7. The eviction and demolition of PKV student residence must be stopped immediately.
Issued by:
Students United in struggle

University Workers' Charter

Delivered to Wits and UJ management Oct 6th:

UNIVERSITY WORKERS’ CHARTER
The hands of workers built the buildings, laid the roads and produced all the goods in this society. The workers of today and the mothers and fathers who were the workers of yesterday make society possible.

Universities were built using the labour of many people. They run each day on the labour of many people. There are cleaners, teachers, caterers, maintenance workers, technicians, administrative workers, gardeners and more. Without them, there would be no university.

From 1999, universities across South Africa began the process of outsourcing workers. The University of Cape Town was the first to retrench and outsource workers, and run the university like a business. Hundreds of workers were retrenched and workers’ wages and benefits were cut. Their working conditions also deteriorated dramatically.

At Wits University, for example, 613 workers were retrenched and only 250 re-employed by outsourced companies. Typically, cleaners’ wages dropped from R2 227 per month to about R1 200. Workers lost their benefits and moreover, as Wits employees, workers’ children were entitled to free education, which was taken away through the process of outsourcing, slamming shut the doors of learning and culture in the faces of workers’ families. Union membership and union organising among outsourced workers was seriously weakened after workers were kicked out of the public sector and divided according to companies.

Outsourced workers enjoy few benefits: they have no medical aid, travel allowances, housing and maternity benefits or pensions. Workers have been denied their status as members of the university community. Workers have been banned from meeting on campus and intimidated and disciplined for attending meetings and rallies. At Wits, for example, workers were forced to use separate entrances, toilet facilities and banned from using open spaces. Workers are also subjected to racism and verbal abuse.

Workers are forced to live an intolerable life of insecurity and hardship. Many workers must leave home at 5am, walk and wait for transport in the dark, risking their safety. Some workers surive on the food thrown away in the canteen. Workers will never be able to send their children to the university that they maintain. It is a life of worrying if you will be able to feed and clothe and school your children. It is a life of worrying what will happen when the company contract ends with the university. What will happen to you and your family if your lose your job?

Workers gave their sweat for ten and twenty and thirty years – only to get chucked out through retrenchments and outsourcing so that the university could save money. Outsourcing continues to reproduce apartheid in universities today.

What could and should a public university look like?
Treating workers like human beings is not possible in a university run like a capitalist business. The university must be a place where people can work and learn and teach as human beings. The university is part of the public sector. The public sector must be about what people need. The public sector today can be like seeds of a different future – a future where everything is collectively owned and organised under workers and community control according to what people need.

Everyone whose labour contributes to the university should have:
• A living wage
• A secure job
• Decent, safe and healthy working conditions
• Democratic collective organisation so that they can speak and act together
• A safe place where they can leave children who need care
• Access to the education facilities

The labour of so many workers doing so many jobs is necessary so that the university can run every day. The university must make sure it runs with respect for the workers it needs.
We demand an end to all outsourcing at public sector institutions and the direct employment of everyone working without loss of jobs.

No workers should bear the costs and consequences of the university’s decision to outsource.

There Must be Job Security for All
• There must be permanent jobs for all workers.
• University management must take all steps necessary to ensure that all workers who have lost their jobs as a result of the outsourcing of “non-essential” services are reinstated.
• All workers jobs must be secured if there is a change in contracted companies, or if there is a change in the contract with an existing company. Workers who lost their jobs when contracts changed or were terminated, must be reinstated.
• The sporadic employment of casual labourers must be rendered impermissible in terms of the rules of the university. No worker should be discarded merely because their services are not immediately vital for the smooth running of the university.

A Fair Wage is a Living Wage
• Everyone who works at the university, regardless of who employs them, should have a living wage. In solidarity with the struggle of Marikana workers, we support the demand for a living wage of R12,500.
• As a first step, we demand a restoration of wage rates to equivalent levels to those reached immediately prior to outsourcing, once inflation over the last 15 years has been factored in.
• The university management must take responsibility for setting the wage levels of workers, even if workers are employed under outsourced companies.

All Workers Must Have Full Access to the University, including Benefits that Come with Working at a University
• All workers should receive the same benefits as academic staff. No one is non-essential; no one deserves to be treated as if they are expendable. These benefits include but are not limited to, pension, medical, housing and leave benefits, as well as access to university transport.
• The right to full access to the library, including the ability to borrow books from the library. The right to full access to computer facilities.
• The right to free tuition for any worker and worker’s child studying at the university. Support for workers to complete their schooling education must be provided.
• Child care facilities must be provided for all workers on campus.
• All workers must be given access to toilets, kitchens and tea rooms closest to where they work on campus.
• All workers must be given preference to job and other career advancement opportunities. This process must be made transparent to workers.

Freedom to Participate and Associate as Members of the University Community
• Workers are members of the university community.
• Workers have the right to gather, meet and organise on campus collectively at their PLACE of employment.
• The right of workers to associate with each other for the purposes of defending and advancing their rights must receive institutional protection at the university. This includes the right to and time off to attend union and other organisational meetings.
• Workers’ organisations and representatives of their choice must be recognised by the university and other employers.
• The right to demonstrate, march, picket or strike on and near the campus without threat or fear of disciplinary measures or dismissal must be guaranteed. No one should be penalised if they refuse to cross a picket line, or refuse to do the work of another worker who is on strike.
• There must be democratic decision-making in the university that involves the whole university community. Workers must be represented on the highest decision-making bodies of the university.

Access to Information
• All information pertaining to the allocation of funds by the university, as well as all other budgetary matters, must be made accessible by management to workers.
• All information affecting workers directly, such as the contracts signed between the university and the companies, must be made fully accessible to any and all workers.

Dignified, Safe and Healthy Working Conditions for All
• The intrinsic dignity of all members of the university community must be respected.
• The university must prohibit any and all forms of unequal treatment against workers.
• All workers must be supplied with the necessary protective clothing and training as well as adequate changing, ablution and rest facilities.
• Workers must have the right to refuse any unsafe and unhealthy work without fear of disciplinary action.

Statement Of Support From Nehawu Wits Branch To Wits University Students Protest

We as the NEHAWU, Bheki Mkhize branch, Wits University, wish to extend our solidarity in support with the current organized student struggle for the reduction of registration and accommodation fees that have been proposed by the University for the next academic year (2016).

Wits are notoriously unjustified and unreasonable TOLL fees in the entire country which cannot be affordable to us as disadvantaged people.  It is common cause that the upfront payment of fees charged from our children each year not only leaves the majority of them outside the education system but it is also another form of discrimination and GROSS violation of a human right.  Many students barely afford  the current EXORBITANT cost of accommodation and some are left with no option but to sleep in libraries and garbages at this University, and the University  Management is well aware of these problems and chooses to  `TURN A BLIND EYE’ on them.

Is this your interpretation of transformation that clearly appears to perpetuate the imbalances and inequalities of the past regime which we thought your mission was to correct?  Could it be because you understand transformation on racial terms as `blacks and coloureds’ that are supposedly inferior to `whites and Indians’.

It is common cause that you chose to prioritize a commercial interest at the expense of a BLACK CHILD.  Your divisive style of leadership leaves a lot to be desired.  You have deliberately and intentionally prioritized a select group of people and continue to channel every available resource towards them which completely neglecting the existence of the rest of the population in the university.  There is no word on the so-called `R90m’ (to mention but one example) of any of this money benefiting a single student never mind poor `illegitimate’ staff members, in particular Africans,

You and your management are well aware of the continuing challenges of Campus  Control night shift allowance that has dragged forever, You are equally aware of the staff medical aid which is not subsidized and discriminates against staff and in particular Africans.  You have chosen to turn a blind eye on these matters, JUST AS YOU ARE DOING TO THE PLIGHT OF THE STUDENTS.

We DEMAND you URGENT AND ABSOLUTE URGENT intervention on all these matters that affect us as people!  NOTHING ELSE. You must be seen to be LEADING THIS UNIVERSITY!!!!!!!!!!!!

AMANDLA LEADERSHIP,WE ARE FULLY  BEHIND YOU.
​​
BUILD STRONG WORKPLACE ORGANISATION, CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS AND INTERNATIONALISM

: ‪+27 76 786 6929‬: NEHAWU
National Education Health & Allied Workers’ Union

WITS UNIVERSITY
JOHANNESBURG
E-Mail: Tiny.Minyuku@wits.ac.za


40 Jorissen Street,
Ground Floor South Court Building,
Braamfontein,
WITS, 2050

Tel: (011) 717-9431
Website: www.nehawu.org.za
Enquiries: Cde Tiny Minyuku
Mobile:072 505 4845

United Front Calls On Wits University To Guarantee Rights Of Protest And To End Policy Of Outsourcing

The United Front (UF) condemns the actions of Wits University management to punish the workers and students who at the end of May 2015 occupied the office of the Vice-Chancellor in support of MJL workers who have lost their jobs and income.

The workers and students were protesting against the outsourcing of services by Wits University. As a result of outsourcing many workers employed at the University have no job security whatsoever. In particular, Wits contractor MJL Electrical, since January 2015, has failed to pay workers their full salaries and to pay in UIF, tax and provident fund monies despite making deductions from workers’ wages. Workers are unable to access these benefits. Wits management has now terminated their contract with MJL and the workers were discarded on the 1st of June with no benefits and no wages.
Following the occupation, Wits University sought and was granted an interdict by the court to stop occupation despite the fact that workers and students had by that time voluntarily ended the occupation. The interdict goes further, and is significantly more punitive, than just an order to stop the occupation. It violates students and workers' constitutional right to protest. Furthermore, the court granted costs against the students and workers which would render those same workers and students liable for the University's legal expenses. Expecting students and unemployed workers to pay is ridiculous. By pursuing such an order it affects students ability to study, targets the unemployed, and curbs the right to protest and freedom of expression. How can the University do this? How can the University be ever regarded as an institution promoting academic freedom? This action by Wits University amounts to severe political repression.
We call on Wits University to stop the effects of this interdict, and to guarantee in writing the rights of workers, students and academics to protest without let or hindrance. We also call on Wits University to end its policy of outsourcing and to provide job security to all workers who provide required and essential services at the university. This policy regards the University as a corporate entity which can easily discard workers at the whims of neo-liberal management dictates.
We call on all trade unions and other civil society organisations to stand with the MJL workers and the Wits Workers Solidarity Committee. We call for sending of protest letters to Vice-Chancellor Professor Adam Habib: email addresses – adam.habib@wits.ac.za and his PA: Ms. Kanina Foss Kanina.Foss@wits.ac.za, fax – 086 726 3064.
FOR COMMENTS, CONTACT:
1. Mazibuko K. Jara: UF National Secretary – 083 987 9633
2. John Appolis: UF Campaigns Coordinator – 073 408 2674
3. Siyabonga Mbuqe: Gauteng UF – 076 889 5459