Pretoria - Within six months, a task team convened by the Unisa council will be expected to come up with a strategy to insource general workers at the institution.
The team, made up of university management, workers and student representatives, has also been tasked with implementing the strategy, which will ensure outsourcing labour at the university is a thing of the past.
This follows a protest by students and workers on Friday at Unisa, Africa’s largest institution of higher learning.
“We have asked that at the end of six months, all general workers be in possession of their contracts, with benefits like all workers at the institution,” said student leader, Toki Monene, of the EFF.
Unisa students and workers picketed outside the Pretoria main campus of Unisa while the university council was meeting, saying they were awaiting a response to a memorandum they had delivered a week earlier.
In the memorandum, they touched on the outsourcing and demanded that cleaners, gardeners, security personnel and cafeteria workers be fully employed members of Unisa staff, and not outsourced from other companies.
Unisa spokesman Martin Ramotshela confirmed that plans to insource were in progress, and the council was committed to insourcing some of the currently outsourced services.
“The council established a multi-disciplinary team comprised of all relevant stakeholders, which will be tasked with operationalising this decision of council.”
The team would work under the supervision of the executive committee of the council for the six months.
The protest had also been about the illegal constitution of the council, some members having stayed on when their contracts had expired.
”We wanted the removal of four members whose contracts had expired, and that was done,” Monene told the Pretoria News.
Ramotshela said: ”The council also discussed the term of office of some council members and resolved that in the best interests of the university and guided by its statutes, these members would need to step down from the council with immediate effect.”
To that effect, Dr Boni Mehlomakhulu was elected as chairman of the council, with Saki Simelane being sworn in as vice-president, a move which was well received by the student group.
The matter of outsourcing formed part of the grievances of the recent #FeesMustFall campaign, which bought learning to a standstill across the country.
The students said they would not see the university council’s agreement to their demands as victory, but as a step in the right direction. ”Only once the workers have signed on the dotted line and started working, we will celebrate,” Monene said.
@ntsandvose
Pretoria News
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