Workers not invited

THE 3 000-strong march at UCT last Wednesday was successful in uniting students and academics in protest against gender-based violence and unacceptably high levels of crime in South Africa (“Students and staff march at UCT in protest against abuse”, February 21).

However, noticeably absent from the march were the university’s cleaning, gardening, catering and bus-driving workers.

Clearly the invitation to protest (assisted by the decision that teaching would come to a halt) was highly effective in encouraging the participation of students and academics alike. The turnout was a significant victory for the democratic practice of a citizenry expressing themselves and their grievances, as well as calling public leaders to account.

But was the same invitation and opportunity extended to the university’s workers? Their absence was worrying, as workers at UCT are affected by violent crime, gender-based violence and abuse to no lesser extent than academic staff and students. Surely workers should form as integral a part of the university’s community as anyone else? Or perhaps the fact that their employment is outsourced through contractors excludes them in the eyes of some.

To its credit, the Students’ Representative Council (SRC) acknowledged this as a sad “oversight on the part of UCT management and the SRC”. However, the question of whether workers had been invited to the protest, posted in an e-mail to the university’s communications and marketing department on Thursday, has received no response at the time of writing.

It is my hope that in future, UCT holds an inclusive view of who constitutes its community so that all its members can stand in solidarity against the scourge of violence in our society, and benefit from any UCT initiatives and programmes which aim at its prevention.