UCT INSOURCES WORKERS
1 000 new employees on university’s payroll Textbook delivery in Eastern Cape fails the test
THE University of Cape Town will welcome about 1 000 insourced employees following an agreement it signed with trade union Nehawu last year to end outsourcing.
Following the #FeesMustFall protests last year, one of the students’ demands was an end to outsourcing at universities.
UCT was one of the first universities that agreed to do away with outsourcing.
The employees being insourced on Friday were outsourced from six companies and include cleaners, groundsmen, campus protection, student and staff transport services and those who cook at residences.
However, catering staff will only be insourced when their contract ends in 2019 or sooner if the parties agree on an earlier date.
Vice-chancellor Max Price said that the process did not come without heavy costs to the university.
“There is no doubt that the insourcing project has added to the university's challenge of financial sustainability,” he said.
“We have budgeted for a once-off capital expenditure of R40-million from our reserves and an annual recurrent operational cost of approximately R68-million.”
Price said the university had added pressure because of the decline in the state subsidy over the past five years.
“In each of those years, the government subsidy fell short of our cost increase by approximately R50-million; thus cumulatively we are now approximately R250million short annually.
“We partially compensated for these deficits by increasing fee income well above inflation, but we remain with an ongoing shortfall. In addition, the 0% fee increase for 2016 has created further financial challenges.”
Price said the UCT retirement fund was liaising with the pension and provident funds of the outsource companies to determine the fund rules and options for staff to either withdraw their pension funds or transfer them to the university’s retirement fund.
Early this year, the universities of Pretoria, South Africa and the Tshwane University of Technology also agreed to insourcing following ongoing protests.
Last year, Wits University also agreed, saying it would establish a commission to determine the details of how insourcing could be undertaken in a financially sustainable manner.
Other universities – Nelson Mandela Metropolitan and Johannesburg – also agreed to end outsourcing.
During the protests, workers bemoaned the fact that they worked for institutions but their children could not study for free and also that they could not afford the fees with salaries as little as R2 600. SCHOOLS in the Eastern Cape had not received their textbooks at the start of the current academic year despite the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) ordering the Department of Basic Education to do so.
Last year, the SCA ruled that the department had a duty to ensure that all pupils received textbooks before the start of the academic year. The Public Service Commission visited 99 schools in both urban and rural areas to conduct inspections, according to its report, titled “Service Delivery Inspections Conducted at Selected Schools”, released last week.
The inspections were done in January and February and coincided with schools reopening.
The commission visited 10 Eastern Cape schools and none of them had received their textbooks at the start of the year.
However, other provinces including the Western Cape, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, North West and Mpumalanga had 100% delivery.
And Limpopo, which has previously also failed to deliver textbooks timeously, was among the provinces that had the highest delivery rate.
Gauteng and Northern Cape had only delivered 50% and 56% respectively at the beginning of the academic year.