UCT workers get ready to down tools

Union wants full day work for all

ABOUT 700 UCT maintenance workers are set to down tools early next week, following a deadlock in three-month-long negotiations between unions and the university.

Their list of demands includes: a transfer of the provident fund to workers; shift allowances; insourcing of fourhour workers; and a change in UCT’s policy on hours worked by pregnant women. The union has been granted a certificate for a protected strike by the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA).

Abrahams Aghalus, a negotiator for the South African Liberated Public Service Workers Union (Salipswu), has accused UCT management of protracting negotiations.

“Aghalus said a strike could have been avoided had UCT management sat in the negotiations instead of delegating a legal team to represent it.

Bulumnko Nkume, a halfday cleaner at UCT, believes the university split workers into two groups – one working full time and the other half day – to divide the workforce.

But the university says full day posts aren’t available.

The union’s provincial chairman, Batandwa Sonamzi, said it was lobbying the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) and another union to join the strike. The unions are due to meet today to discuss the strike.

UCT spokesman Elijah Moholola dismissed claims the university had acted in bad faith during negotiations, saying the union did not enjoy bargaining rights with the university.

“UCT is currently in the process of determining its union landscape, which has been substantially affected by the insourcing agreed to in late 2015,” he said.

Moholola said Salipswu had consented to UCT’s legal team being present in the negotiations. He said management considered it a priority to interdict the strike. Moholola said prior to insourcing the workers, one of the outsourced cleaning contractors had employed a number of casual staff who were not permanently assigned to the university contract.

“If UCT had insourced these employees on the same or similar terms in terms of section 197 of the Labour Relations Act, they would have been employed as ad hoc casual staff, with no guaranteed hours nor income,” Moholola said.

“Instead, in response to demands by this group of employees for improved job security, UCT employed them on part-time, permanent contracts for a guaranteed four hours of work per day and the associated remuneration, even though they had only provided ad hoc/casual relief work previously.”

UCT insourced 1 200 workers last year.

PICTURE: HENK KRUGER A makeshift washing line in the temporary housing area for Imizamo Yethu fire victims in Hout Bay. Protesters burnt down an ANC councillor’s house on Thursday afternoon during ongoing protest action in the area.

UCT cleaner Bulumnko Nkume.