Wits cleaners up in arms over retrenchments
8 December 2009, 07:44
By Angelique Serrao
"Merry Xmas. Wits gift: retrenchments."
This was just one of the posters held up by students and lecturers at Wits University who held a lunchtime protest over the possible retrenchments of cleaning staff.
Lecturers at the University said they became aware last week that a Wits cleaning contractor, Supercare, had retrenched staff, giving them only one month's notice.
A letter by Supercare Cleaning Services to the staff states that their service level agreement with the university has been cancelled and will terminate at the end of December.
The letter further states that employees will only get their UIF cards and money due after they have returned the company's uniform.
No retrenchment packages are mentioned.
In a petition sent to Wits lecturers and students, it was said that some of the cleaners had worked at Wits since the 1990s when they were directly employed by the university.
"When they were transferred to the outsourced company their pay was halved and they lost their benefits as well as the right to educate their children at Wits," the letter read.
A cleaner who protested yesterday said December would be his last working month.
"I have five children, I have bills to pay. Everything in my life will collapse if I am retrenched," he said. "None of us know what to do. Christmas is here and in January I have to find money to send my children to school."
Senior lecturer in the School of Social Sciences Noor Nieftagodien said the retren-chments were timed when students were gone for their holidays, hoping the issue would not be noticed.
"The timing is callous. It's Christmas time and the workers are mainly women. Often they are the sole breadwinners," he said.
He said the retrenchments were done with no consultation and with no union input.
"The university is taking in more students next year. They are erecting new buildings. Who will do the cleaning?" Nieftagodien asked. "Will we go into dirty lecture theatres?"
Another lecturer said that academic staff had received a 12.5 percent increase in July, yet the cleaners earned around R1 100 a month.
The acting vice-chancellor and principal of Wits, Professor Yunus Ballim, said for 2010 there had been a renegotiation of the service level agreement with Supercare and Impact which "marginally reduces the level of services required".
He said the school was not insensitive to the possible impact its decisions would have on the staff of service providers.
"We are concerned about the welfare of people who work on our campuses," Ballim said. He has forwarded the staff petition to Supercare.
"Merry Xmas. Wits gift: retrenchments."
This was just one of the posters held up by students and lecturers at Wits University who held a lunchtime protest over the possible retrenchments of cleaning staff.
Lecturers at the University said they became aware last week that a Wits cleaning contractor, Supercare, had retrenched staff, giving them only one month's notice.
A letter by Supercare Cleaning Services to the staff states that their service level agreement with the university has been cancelled and will terminate at the end of December.
The letter further states that employees will only get their UIF cards and money due after they have returned the company's uniform.
No retrenchment packages are mentioned.
In a petition sent to Wits lecturers and students, it was said that some of the cleaners had worked at Wits since the 1990s when they were directly employed by the university.
"When they were transferred to the outsourced company their pay was halved and they lost their benefits as well as the right to educate their children at Wits," the letter read.
A cleaner who protested yesterday said December would be his last working month.
"I have five children, I have bills to pay. Everything in my life will collapse if I am retrenched," he said. "None of us know what to do. Christmas is here and in January I have to find money to send my children to school."
Senior lecturer in the School of Social Sciences Noor Nieftagodien said the retren-chments were timed when students were gone for their holidays, hoping the issue would not be noticed.
"The timing is callous. It's Christmas time and the workers are mainly women. Often they are the sole breadwinners," he said.
He said the retrenchments were done with no consultation and with no union input.
"The university is taking in more students next year. They are erecting new buildings. Who will do the cleaning?" Nieftagodien asked. "Will we go into dirty lecture theatres?"
Another lecturer said that academic staff had received a 12.5 percent increase in July, yet the cleaners earned around R1 100 a month.
The acting vice-chancellor and principal of Wits, Professor Yunus Ballim, said for 2010 there had been a renegotiation of the service level agreement with Supercare and Impact which "marginally reduces the level of services required".
He said the school was not insensitive to the possible impact its decisions would have on the staff of service providers.
"We are concerned about the welfare of people who work on our campuses," Ballim said. He has forwarded the staff petition to Supercare.
- This article was originally published on page 5 of The Star on December 08, 2009
Johannesburg
