'Abused' Workers at Their Wits' End

This report appeared in the Mail and Guardian Online. The full report can be found here

Wits University continues to practise apartheid-style segregation and treatment of workers, claims a hard-hitting report by Wits staff members, students and workers. The Mail & Guardian has a copy of the report, which the Wits Workers Solidarity Committee this week submitted to the university's senate

Launch of The Draft Report on the Conditions of Outsourced Workers at Wits University

**The report will be available on this site shortly**

The Launch will be accompanied by a show of a video and a photo exhibition.

All are invited under the following details:

Date: Thursday, 27 October, 2011

Time: 12h30-13h30

Venue: Wits University, Senate House Concourse

 

The report gives a broad background to the genesis of outsourcing at the University of the Witwatersrand. It highlights the condition of the treatment of workers at the University and tells the story of how workers who are all black and mainly African, are segregated from the University community, they are subjected to using separate entrances, toilets, public facilities (e.g. Library Lawns and the Matrix) and workers are not allowed to gather and associate on campus. The report argues that this has rendered these black workers as sub-human and sub-citizens at Wits and that such conditions are made possible by both the contractual agreements between the University and Outsourced Companies as well as the decision to outsource in the first place.

It argues that the ways in which the University has treated workers, directly and indirectly through contractual agreements with companies has offended the values it espouses - human rights, democracy and freedom. It recommend that the university immediately removes all forms of segregation that has rendered outsourced workers as sub-human, and in the long term; it calls for the absolute removal of outsourcing and re-integration of all outsourced workers as part of the University employees.

The report will be submitted to Wits University Senate, Forum, Convocation and Council

For further information, contact:

wsc.wits@gmail.com

Important Strike Updates and What You Can Do

BREAKING NEWS !

The strike of cleaning sector workers has been ongoing for a month now, with workers downing tools and foregoing pay, rejecting the employer’s offer of 6% and demanding a living wage of R4300 per month instead.

This morning, however, the unions have informed the Wits Workers Solidarity Committee (following Satawu’s acceptance of an 8% offer last week and a decision by Pretoria-based unions to instruct members to report back to work yesterday) that:

“This has led to the remaining committed Trade Unions to review their positions and have now grudgingly decided to end the strike with effect from Monday the 12th September 2011, without having signed the sell-out agreement but to further make submissions to the ECC on the positions of the remaining Trade Unions.”

FINAL MARCH & RALLY PLANNED FOR FRIDAY!

The unions are planning a massive final rally and march on:

FRIDAY, 09 SEPTEMBER, 09h00

The plan is to start the rally at Wits University for a final protest march to Joubert Park at 10h00, which will proceed to the offices of the Dept of Labour Jhb where a memorandum will be handed over.

WHAT WITS STAFFF CAN DO!

1. Join the rally on Friday, 09 September, at 09h00. Details of the meeting point will be confirmed tomorrow. Bring bags of rubbish, brooms, mops, vuvuzelas, whistles, banners, posters, or anything else to make a visual or other statement.

2. Call Ingrid Chunilall, CB240, 011 717 4440.

‘OPERATION LITTER’

STUDENT ACTIONS; WITS MANAGEMENT RESPONSES

Wits management has allowed the companies to use scab labour during the strike.

Students have run a campaign of civil defiance and disobedience called ‘Operation Litter’ in solidarity with striking workers.

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvBxKQwmD5g&feature=related

Three students have been suspended by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) from all non-academic activities for participating in these acts of civil disobedience.

***

For more on Operation Litter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnhQrZalvoM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3wXRVY6oBI&feature=related

FOR MORE ON THE WITS WORKERS SOLIDARITY COMMITTEE:

http://witsworkerssolidaritycommittee.blogspot.com

wsc.wits@gmail.com

Wits Workers Solidarity Committee Has a YouTube Page

You can have a look at all our latest videos on our YouTube Channel
Or click below:


Wits Students Protest Scabs Episode 1


Wits Students Protest Scabs Episode 2


Wits Students Protest Scabs Episode 3

More Videos: Wits Students Protest Scabs and Show Solidarity With Striking Workers

Wits Students Protest Scabs and Show Solidarity With Striking Workers

Wits workers rally in support for workers on strike

Find the Vuvuzela article on the workers' strike here.

Join the Strike Fund!

CLEANING WORKERS STRIKE FUND


WITS STAFF, SHOW YOUR SUPPORT FOR STRIKING CLEANING WORKERS ON OUR CAMPUS!


On Monday the 8th of August Wits cleaning staff, as part of a nationwide strike, will be demanding a living wage of R4300 a month.

The Wits Workers' Solidarity Committee supports the strike of cleaning staff, and is appealing for contributions towards a strike fund that can assist striking workers and families for incomes lost during the strike action.

A strike fund committee, consisting of democratically elected representatives of workers, staff and students has been established, which will collect all monies with transparent record-keeping, and distribute the funds to workers based on democratic and transparent principles decided on by workers themselves.


** To make a contribution to the strike fund, staff should contact Ingrid.Chunilall@wits.ac.za **

Any and all contributions are welcome. No amount is too small. Workers and their families can use every cent of assistance we can spare


* To become a volunteer to collect contributions in your building, please contact wsc.wits@gmail.com *


For more info: http://witsworkerssolidaritycommittee.blogspot.com/

wsc.wits@gmail.com

Strike: Cleaning Workers Call For Living Wage

On Monday the 8th of August Wits cleaning staff, as part of a nationwide strike, will be demanding a living wage of R4300 a month. As the Wits Workers' Solidarity Committee, we also call on the University management to issue a statement and stand in support of this demand. Our university belongs to us all.

Vuvuzela Reports: 100% Increase or Nothing

Wits' Campus Newspaper Reports on Workers' Demands

Wits cleaners will go on strike on Monday, demanding a 100% salary increase while employers are offering 8%.

Cleaners from Supercare and Carovone said they are “fighting for a living wage” of R 4 300. They said they have not received an increase since they went on strike in 2006 when they negotiated salaries of R2 031, before deductions are made.

Cleaner representative, Siyabonga Makhalani, said they are not happy with the 8%  employers are offering them. “We do not want percentages,” he said. 

Makhalani said they are also fighting against outsourced workers as other universities, like the University of Johannesburg, employ cleaners directly.  

Carovone worker, Julia Mahlosi, said: “I get about R1 800 and I am so overworked”. She said she is responsible for cleaning all the rooms on one floor of a residence building.

Cleaners said they are suffering as their salaries do not cover their expenses. Supercare worker Alina Modimolla said with six kids she cannot afford to stop working. “My child complains all the time about the low pay.”   

Speaking last Friday at a meeting of the cleaners and the Workers Solidarity Committee, PYA member Feziwe Ndwayana said: “As the ANC Youth League we are here and saying to all the workers we are in full support of the strike and will be there in numbers.  If it means we as students must mobilise at night we will do it because we’ve done it before.” 

Still proud to be Witsie? I’m not

The following letter was submitted by a member of the WWSC to the student newspaper

I’m sure you have noticed Sonke workers pruning the bushes on the lawns and Supercare workers mopping the bathroom floors. But did you know that they are not allowed to use the spaces which they spend their time and energy keeping clean?

These workers are outsourced by Wits to companies. But should we care? Should students engage with issues like outsourced workers on campus?

Workers’ issues are about justice and equality, concepts that we explore during our academic life. Outsourced workers provide key services for this institution. Not much learning could take place without them. Yet how much do we know about workers or the conditions under which they work?

Outsourced workers are subject to a number of rules on campus. My concern is with the role that the university plays in enforcing such laws. Wits recently turned the Matrix basement into a locker and dining room for Outsourced workers. This means that they are not allowed to eat or store their belongings anywhere else, even if they work at bottom end of West campus.

PIMD is the university’s department responsible for dealing with outsourced workers. A senior manager at PIMD is under investigation for allegations of racism. Workers are understandably frustrated as this process began in early November. An investigation into allegations of racism against students and staff in 2009 was resolved within 3 months. Why is the university not applying the same level of urgency when outsourced workers are involved?

There are other concerns. For example, workers are not allowed to meet collectively on campus to discuss their grievances. They are told to meet at their official places of employment. For Supercare workers, that means going to Bryanston. They should be able to meet freely and collectively at their workplace.

Should it matter that workers are not paid directly by Wits? These rules come from both Wits and Outsourced companies. As students, can we sit by and watch this happen? By not raising our voices against this treatment of workers, are we complicit? If Wits is my university, then Wits is the university of the Workers. They should be treated as an integral part of the Wits community.

As a leading intellectual institution, I would have thought that Wits would lead by example.

As students, we should call for an end to outsourcing.

It is time we hold Wits accountable.

An Open Letter to the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Loyiso Nongxa

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

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