NEHAWU AND TUT HAVE REACHED AN AGREEMENT ON INSOURCING

Thursday, 28 January 2016

NEHAWU is inspired by the remarkable courage demonstrated by the workers who braved torrid, breezy and showery conditions to demonstrate against the exploiting and slavery wages in universities. This struggle is to protect and preserve the dignity of workers, for equality of all working men and women and for recognizing that corporatization of universities is an evil act that is led by charlatans with no regard for the interests of workers and their daily struggles.

These workers further demonstrated their advanced understanding of the struggle as they were quick to disassociate themselves from the campaign led by anarchist forces hell-bent on creating confusion and destabilisation through manipulation of these noble processes.

Following a series of critical negotiations between NEHAWU and the Tshwane University of Technology, an agreement has been reached between the two parties to insource all services that are currently managed by external service providers. The process will be gradually phased in taking into account that some contracts between the university and some service providers must reach their end point.

In terms of the agreement reached, the following services will be fully managed by the university with all employees permanently employed by the institution:

(a) Cleaning services

(b) Gardening and maintenance services

(c) Security services and

(d) Catering services

According to the agreement, the workers will receive a minimum wage of R5000, the dependents of these employees will be recipients of study benefits. The first group of workers shall be absorbed from the 01 July 2016 and the programme will run until 2019 when the last batch of contracts expires.

We commend the positive and leading role played by our branch leadership working together with the university management for reaching this agreement amid a very hostile environment as rowdy groups continued to intentionally disturb peaceful negotiations. We further acknowledge the role played by our members in the branch for continuously providing support to this campaign.

We are grateful that the PYA {SASCO, YCLSA, ANCYL} has resolved to keep the university operational and its gates opened whilst the negotiations were underway to ensure that the university could not be hijacked by hooligans who are neither students nor workers. This alliance must be strengthened in order to bring stability to the university.

The union wishes to emphatically reiterate that the struggle for insourcing has been and remains a legitimate and noble one and we will continue to put concerted efforts to ensure we emerge victorious.

Statement issued by NEHAWU, 28 January 2016