EFF says Unisa insourcing agreement a 'raw deal'

Unisa council chairman Sakhi Simelane and Unisa principal and vice-chancellor Professor Mandla Makhanya officially sign an agreement on the insourcing of workers. Picture: Oupa Mokoena

Unisa council chairman Sakhi Simelane and Unisa principal and vice-chancellor Professor Mandla Makhanya officially sign an agreement on the insourcing of workers. Picture: Oupa Mokoena

Published Oct 25, 2016

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Pretoria - After nearly a year of haggling defined by protests and breakdown in talks, Unisa on Monday announced an agreement to insource all outsourced services.

Unisa council chairman Sakhi Simelane told a media briefing at the main campus in Pretoria that they would be appointing 910 staff members within the cleaning, security, gardening and waste-removal services.

“For 10 months the multi-stakeholder task team had been exploring and debating various models designed to deliver on its objective,” Simelane said.

“At a special meeting of the executive committee of council on October 19, the task team finally submitted a proposed model for insourcing currently outsourced services and staff, which was approved by the Unisa council and executive management.”

Simelane said the agreement to insourcing would be capped at the current outsourced contract value of R112 million and based on a shared model that applied a 70/30 principle - with 70% allocated to salaries and 30% to operational costs.

“The stakeholders agree that 910 of the 1 413 affected employees will benefit from the insourcing, based on a fair selection process. This takes into account South African citizenship, matric qualification, Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority verification for security personnel, and at least a year’s service at Unisa, with no criminal record,” he said.

The termination of all affected contracts for outsourced services would be completed as soon as possible and the procurement of new service providers for the shared-services model would commence immediately, he said.

“The stakeholders agree that an ex gratia salary payment of R3 500 for three months (totalling R10 500) be made to all staff who are not selected for insourced employment,” Simelane said.

However, this agreement was not well received by the EFF Student Command. It distanced itself from the deal, which it said excluded 503 workers.

National president Mpho Morolane said they refused to be party to the resolutions agreed upon and went as far as calling it a raw deal.

“When we budged into the council of this university demanding insourcing, we were embarking on a social justice mandate to ensure redress for the vulnerable workers at the university; we can’t be part of an agreement whereby 500 workers are going to lose employment,” Morolane said.

He said it could not be a historic event when a percentage of the people would be losing employment. He further described the agreement as a raw deal and vowed to continue fighting.

“We are aware that in all these universities we got a raw deal as far as insourcing is concerned and therefore we must go back to the drawing board and see how best we can combat the system,” he said.

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