On the confusing negotiations at UG
Dear Editor, SN’s article of November 27, 2018 on the crumpled negotiations between UG’s Administration and the related Unions, makes for interesting, if not, at least, confusing reading.
One tries valiantly to grapple with the logic of the communication process, when he/she reads the following as reported: “though the negotiations with the Unions never moved beyond differences over the agenda, I felt obliged to act on what we had planned all along to do, that is to offer a salary increase for 2018.”
Intricated in this pronouncement is the static attitude that the Unions are not seen in their substantive role, but rather more as the representative employees, who do not earn the respect of being treated as equals – a substantive default in normal organisational discourse in which the management seems to have refused to accept little or no responsibility for the palpable lack of engagement – on no other terms but its own.
The situation is compounded by the Administration’s misdirected view that there could be a ‘principled’ position that ‘performance will be a factor in this exercise, and that no academic staff with outstanding grades will be granted an increase.’
Again, it is derisibly puzzling how one can find a principle on which to base a non-existent system - in this case a Performance Management System which in any case should have been previously approved by the Council - as an explicit policy applicable to all levels and categories of the University’s employees.
The so-called ‘principle’ of performance evaluation must by definition be comprehensively applied. It simply contradicts itself if it discriminates amongst the relevant target groups.
In the process, it is difficult to appreciate how an appropriately informed Council can support this patent travesty of effective human resources management principles and practices. But then one understands the predicament it faces in the critical absence of a wellorganised Human Resources Management Department. In the meantime, how could it be valid that a ‘Personnel Division’ actually exists in an institution that presumably teaches human resources management? What grade then should the Council be awarded in such circumstances?
According to SN, the Administration’s position is as summarised below: i) a) Approval of salary increases was unanimous by
the Council; b) Head of the UG Workers’ Union participated at the meeting of November 14, 2018. But there was no clear indication that he voted, presumably since he was not a Council Member.
ii) Salary ‘adjustment’ was approved in the context of what was affordable…. And without prejudice to subsequent negotiation. iii) a) Unions had advised on May 1 on negotiating
salary increase and benefits for 2018 (only?); b) Other matters to be discussed after agreement. iv) Administration called for conclusion of a Collective Bargaining Agreement – which did not exist until 1976 – an exercise so comprehensive that experience would suggest it could not possibly be produced in the limited timeframe obtaining.
v) There would appear to be agreement in principle between the parties to: a) the design and conduct of Job Evaluation
Exercise; and b) Performance Management, both of which obviously involve the intervention of consultancies. So that these proposals would have little actual relevance to rationalising the current impasse, if it were in fact the intention.
vi) Dispute about the membership of the Personnel Officer and Chief-of-Staff on the Administration’s team.
Admittedly, this construct is debatable as it is uncertain at what level in the organisational hierarchy the two officials operate. Arguably, if they are not part of the regular executive policy-making body, then it follows they would hardly be qualified for a comparable level of
decision-making. Certainly, they should at least be equal to the highest level of staff represented by the UGSA.
vii) Next reference to the failed attempt at negotiation is hardly substantive; and hardly relates to the overall conclusion by the Administration to impose a concoction of salary increase and performance evaluation award. In the final analysis, all must understand the distinction between: i) general salary and benefits increases based on legitimate negotiations;
ii) annual (or other periodic) increments on salary, based on a well articulated performance management system, the elements of which can also be mutually agreed.
All the parties concerned should come to the realisation that in the particular circumstances, the institution’s self-portrait desperately needs to be enhanced.
There can be no argument that learning applies to leadership – an exemplar to be emulated by the student body and others. Yours faithfully, E.B. John