University that skimped on laptops gives staff highest pay rise
A university that told parliament it could not buy laptops for students because it lacked reserves has given its staff the highest salary increase of SA’s 26 public universities.
The Mangosuthu University of Technology (MUT) in Durban — the smallest of the six universities of technology, with 13,896 students last year — gave staff a 5.08% pay rise.
In a statement on Tuesday, MUT spokesperson Mbali Mkhize confirmed the increase. “The decision comes after the council sat at its special meeting on May 20 and approved a 5,08% salary increase that the university management and organised labour agreed upon.”
Mkhize said the university decided to pay the amount this week “to reduce any unnecessary delays in getting the money to staff, who should have received it as part of their salaries since the beginning of the year”.
MUT did not respond to question related to the increases from the Sunday Times.
In a presentation to parliament in February, after being summoned to discuss governance-related issues, MUT said a lack of reserves “resulted in the inability to purchase laptops for students” and its current status was “totally reliant on the good offices of the DHET [department of higher education & training]”.
The chair of the portfolio committee on higher education, Mohlopi Mapulane, said this week he could only comment on MUT’s salary increase after “we have all the facts”.
“But we will be asking for the minister’s intervention in the affairs at MUT because we continue to receive submissions and representations about the state of affairs there. The overwhelming view of committee members is that MUT must be placed under administration because the council is not helpful,” Mapulane said.
Meanwhile, Wits University, the only institution to impose a moratorium on salary increases this year, is now experiencing a pushback from academic staff who say that executives will still receive a “bonus”.
Professor Anthony Stacey, spokesperson for the Academic Staff Association of Wits University, said the university and organised labour signed a collective agreement in February 2019 that provided for a 6% acrossthe-board increase and a 1% performancebased increase for 2021.
But Wits’s senior executive team informed staff in a communiqué on January 22 there would be a moratorium on increases “in order to protect jobs and to ensure the financial sustainability of the university”.
Stacey said the salary increase dispute has been referred to private mediation after a meeting between Wits management and organised labour on May 24 failed to result in a mediated solution.
“We accept that subsidies have been cut and budgets are under pressure, and we have a mandate from our members to accept a lesser increase than is specified in the collective agreement,” said Stacey.
But he added: “It is unconscionable for the executives to place a moratorium on salary increases for employees while they, as the least vulnerable members of our community, continue to benefit from the exploitation of employees.”
Wits spokesperson Buhle Zuma said management had made an alternative offer and is “currently immersed in a process of facilitation, mediation and potential arbitration with organised labour”.
She said the variable pay given to executives cannot be equated to a bonus.
“This is a percentage of executives’ salaries that is retained and is earned if they achieve the performance objectives set out
The justification that the payments are made in terms of contracts between the council and the individual executives is spurious and invalid
Professor Anthony Stacey
in the institutional scorecard.
The allegation that management is withholding increases to ensure ‘bonuses’ is completely false.”
Stacey said this justification was “spurious and invalid”.
Of the 21 universities that responded to Sunday Times questions on pay increases, 13 confirmed staff had received increases while six said negotiations were still under way.
Durban University of Technology spokesperson Alan Khan refused to divulge details on increases, saying it was “confidential”.
Other universities that awarded salary increases this year included:
● Walter Sisulu University, 5%;
● Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University, 4.5%;
● University of the Free State, 4.23%;
● Unisa, 4%;
● Sol Plaatje University, 3.9%;
● University of Cape Town, 3.8%;
● University of Venda, 3.5%;
● Stellenbosch University, 3.4%;
● Nelson Mandela University, 3,3%; and
● University of Pretoria, 2.2%, 3.3%, 4% and 4.2% depending on the employee’s salary level.
The universities of KwaZulu-Natal, Western Cape, Johannesburg, North West, Rhodes and Cape Peninsula University of Technology said salary negotiations are under way.