UCT Left Students Forum
Yesterday, after years of workers struggling to catch UCT’s attention, the UCT executive, with the majority support of council, made a commitment to the principle of insourcing.
The commitment is predicated on the end of the shutdown and agreement to a timeline.
Let it be known that the change of attitude from UCT was not done out of good faith.
Because of the culmination of worker-student pressure over the last few weeks, UCT capitulated to the demands.
Council’s arrogance and inability in the past to relate to workers’ issues reflects the disconnect which privileged South Africans have to the working class.
It is deeply disappointing that pressure from students is the only language which management responds to.
In the period around 1999, UCT outsourced the labour of services it deemed as “non-core”.
Many workers employed by UCT were immediately retrenched. Those lucky enough to be re-employed by the private companies found that they would have no medical aid or pension, would no longer receive a staff tuition discount for their children, and would have to do the same work they had been doing for years for a much lower salary.
Outsourcing was used to make it appear the university was not responsible for the poor working conditions it imposed on workers.
Through worker and student action since the implementation of outsourcing, there have been many attempts to reverse the decision to outsource.
Countless demands formulated by workers have outrightly been rejected by the UCT council. Thousands of students have signed petitions calling for insourcing.
Evidence of the harm caused by outsourcing has repeatedly been brought before UCT’s eyes. UCT workers managed to secure a Code of Conduct in 2004 which marginally improved their conditions.
UCT, in a publication released this week, referred to this Code of Conduct to argue that it provides sufficient protection for workers to morally justify its current practice of outsourcing.
However, this Code of Conduct is woefully inadequate and is poorly monitored and regulated, a poor attempt to absolve UCT of its responsibility for the mistreatment and inhumane conditions which have been brought about by outsourcing.
Furthermore, the Code of Conduct does not even cover all workers on campus: many cafeteria workers face even worse conditions. One example of the deficiency of the Code of Conduct is the case of Sibanye-employed shuttle driver Mr Jonathan Williams. He was appointed a safety inspector for shuttles, and reported to the company serious defects he found in many of the shuttles.
He was ignored. Mr Williams made several calls for the outsourced company to prioritise the safety of students and staff over the cost of fixing the shuttles. In desperation, and following “sleepless nights worrying about the safety of students”, he reported it to UCT’s traffic department, which passed it on to Sibanye.
He was rewarded with a written warning. Several weeks later he still found deficiencies and, being a man of conscience, prioritised the protection of students and staff over his job by reporting these again to UCT. He was fired.
The Code of Conduct, which is supposed to protect workers, was then used by UCT management to disclaim responsibility, because it bizarrely stipulates that UCT cannot intervene in cases of dismissal – where it matters most.
UCT would not even help him find legal assistance for the hearings he faced.
The deficiencies of the Code of Conduct extend further, from loopholes like the stalling of the payment of bonuses to workers who simply cannot afford missing a cheque, to the meaninglessness of some of the provisions like the meagre pensions given to Supercare workers. One Supercare worker notes that she has worked at UCT for over a decade, yet will receive a grand total of R1 500 upon her retirement.
The existing reviews on outsourcing do not consider the lives of workers; they do not weigh the welfare of outsourced workers against the supposed savings to the university. They just try and calculate whether or not it saves money to continue to pay workers poverty wages. And in any case, the university feels free to ignore them. Despite not adequately considering the numerous benefits of paying workers better wages, the 2009 report recommended that the Jammie shuttles, residence cleaning and garden maintenance be insourced. UCT didn’t make the slightest move to follow these recommendations.
The 2014 report found that the bill to buy all the Jammie shuttles and directly employ the drivers at salaries comparable to UCT employees could be as little as 3 percent more than the cost of the contract with the outsourcing shuttle company, Sibanye.
Result: no interest from UCT in insourcing shuttles. Some may wonder why the commitment to the principle of insourcing is not accepted as an outright victory by workers and students. The key is that a “principled” commitment leaves room for any result: insourcing only insofar as it does not cost more may be viewed as a principled commitment which conveniently will never be realised.
The announcement thus relies on a trust to operate in good faith between the worker-student alliance and UCT management. But UCT’s actions have long destroyed any possibility of trust. We outline some instances of bad faith from UCT management over the past week.
Firstly, the initial response to outsourcing, as a result of recent protest pressure, given on Saturday, was to review the financial implications of outsourcing – clearly a strategy to demobilise the movement through stalling, since two reviews have already been conducted and the financial report has already been updated to 2015.
Secondly, the fact that this decision lies with members of council with a clear interest in outsourcing, like Sandile Zungu, who is a non-executive chairperson of one of the outsourced companies, exposes the true intentions of the decision-makers at UCT.
Thirdly, the hypocrisy of UCT throughout these protests has been shown by the police brutality sanctioned by UCT and the victimisation of workers and students through the interdict (including G4S worker and Joint Shop Stewards Council chairperson Mr Bixa, who took no part in the events preceding the interdict – the interdict has subsequently been abandoned, following advice to UCT that it was bad for publicity), while UCT has simultaneously released statements in support of the protests.
It is also ironic that UCT has maintained its position that only “non-core” services are outsourced, but when applying for protection from dismissal in joining the protests, UCT initially responded that some services were simply too essential. This double-speak reveals the class prejudices of UCT management that undermines any trust that may be built.
Thus, critical examination of the conditions imposed by UCT must follow. How can the poverty wages paid to workers be conditional on the shutdown ending if UCT is truly committed to treating workers better?
What does it mean for all parties to agree to a timeline, opening the possibility for UCT to impose unreasonable conditions which effectively render the commitment meaningless? We are all too aware that this may be another strategy to demobilise the movement. We see you, UCT.
We can only be cautiously optimistic at this point, and must take direction from the workers as they scrutinise the proposals put forward by UCT. Of one thing we can be certain: the worker-student alliance is powerful, so much so that more has been achieved in the last 10 days than over a decade of struggle.
Amandla!