Unisa set to be rocked by protest
Pretoria - All general and academic activities at Unisa will be disrupted by a mass protest action by staff and students from 9am on Friday.
|||Pretoria - All general and academic activities at Unisa will be disrupted by a mass protest action by staff and students from 9am on Friday.
The protesters are unhappy with what they describe as irregular activities in the university council and management and their action is timed for when the council meets to deliberate the contents of a memorandum submitted last week, in which contentious issues were outlined. “The issues we raise have been on the table for up to eight months now, and they have been the subject of discussions between us and management,” student leader Mpho Morolane said.
The memorandum was presented to the management for the attention of council and it claims, among other issues, that council includes members whose contracts had apparently expired.
“Among them is acting chairman Dr Sebiletso Mokone-Matabane as well as the council’s adviser. The acting chairman and other members are supposed to have left when their contracts lapsed, but they are still there,” Morolane said.
He also called on the council to reverse decisions around restructuring which, the memorandum claimed, were illegal.
The outsourcing of essential services was included, where the students and workers called for insourcing of, among others, gardeners, security officers, cleaners and cafeteria workers.
The university acknowledged the planned action and said it would respond to concerns raised in the memorandum.
Spokesman Martin Ramotshela said Unisa statutes stipulated that members of council and their eligibility for re-election could be for two consecutive terms of office.
Ramotshela said students were represented in council by two members, while workers had two permanent non-academic staff and a similar number of permanent academic staff.
“They are at liberty to raise matters at council meetings,” Ramotshela said.
He said there was a task team investigating the matter of outsourcing of labour. Among considerations were existing agreements and the number of individuals involved, the implications for Unisa and the benefits and impact of insourcing on the university. “The process has begun,” he added.
Protesters will gather at Unisa’s Muckelneuk Campus, at OR Tambo building, to start their action at 9am.
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Pretoria News
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