The Antidote

The strike by workers in payclasses 5 to 12 at the University of Cape Town continued into its second day today. This morning started with successful picketing along Rosebank Main Road and Woolsack Drive followed by a convergence on Bremner building (home to the university’s administration).

From there workers marched to Upper Campus singing and toy-toying, surely an apt initiation to the throngs of students coming to UCT for their first day of lectures for the year. Most of the students looked somewhat perplexed, but the atmosphere on the plaza and on University Avenue was generally supportive.

The only exception to this that I noticed was a student holding a hastily hand-written piece of paper that read “Go Home Commies”. His childish conflation of our democratic and constitutionally-guaranteed right to strike with a political philosophy was rather comical. A dignified elder striker took him to task and let him know (with a few carefully chosen kind words) that he’d better be off to his lectures since his education was clearly lacking and rather incomplete.

At a meeting in the acoustically-challenged echo chamber that is Jameson Hall, the strikers overwhelmingly resolved to continue the strike for the rest of the day and into Tuesday. Management and the union negotiating team met at Bremner at 2pm. By tomorrow morning we should have an indication if UCT is finally prepared make a constructive offer.

Today was a good day for the strikers - it was sunny and hot and this whitey got his face and balding forehead thoroughly burnt. If there’s anything I’ve learned from this strike, it is to come prepared and appropriately accessorised. Oh, and that a united workforce is a powerful thing, of course!

The strike by UCT workers in payclasses 5 to 12 commenced at 2 pm on Friday and will continue on Monday morning, unless management and the negotiating team miraculously contrived to come up with a solution to the deadlock during the weekend.

On Friday, the majority of strikers marched to the Bremner building, which houses the universities administration, while a smaller contingent was delegated to picket along De Wall Drive attracting the attention of numerous Captonians on their way home from work. The strikers where enthusiastic and very disciplined, singing, brandishing placards and toy-toying. Look at some pics here.

A large proportion of the people who have joined this strike with such conviction have worked at UCT for many years, decades in some cases, some were students here who stayed on after finishing their studies, and many remember the institution as a comparatively good, caring and compassionate employer.

During the last five to ten years, however, UCT has undergone some rather drastic changes. Today, the university is run as a “business” rather than as a public institution and resource of learning and research with at least some grounding in civil society and its relationship to its employees has changed accordingly.

The workforce at UCT has been severely fragmented by an administration that has “outsourced” as many of its “non-core” activities as possible and clearly prefers to deal with its employees in small groups (a tactic of divide and rule that was evident in management’s offers during the recent negotiations).

It’s my sense that there is currently a great deal of disappointment in a UCT leadership that seems oblivious to the widespread unhappiness of its workforce and a vice-chancellor who prefers to communicate via impersonal mass emails rather than by speaking to UCT workers on the steps of the administration building.

There is a deep sense of distrust in a Human Resources department that seems to regard other UCT workers primarily as “resources” and only coincidentally as “human” and that appears to have negotiated salary increases for itself that are much larger than would ever be offered to the remainder of the workforce.

The HR department is widely considered to have under-designing a performance-related remuneration system that is differently understood and differently applied by line-managers across the university’s various departments and faculties, leading many to question its fairness and workability. Having endowed the performance-appraisal system with entirely inefficient feed-back loops, the HR department appeared for a long time to be under the impression that the feeling among UCT employees was that the system was working flawlessly, an exercise in self-deception if ever there was one.

Finally there has been a fairly comprehensive break-down in communication between the broad workforce and the upper management level, which has led a lot of the strikers to feel as though they are being treated unfairly.

Of course this is just my own personal evaluation of the current situation, but I feel that management would do well to consider some of these issues. If they don’t believe me, maybe the vice-chancellor and his deputies should speak to the odd striking UCT worker themselves - an exercises that might just open their eyes.

Wow was I wrong when I suggested the other day that there might not be “enough anger and passion” among UCT workers (payclasses 5 to 12) to sufficiently support the Employees’ Union’s demands in the current dispute with management.

At a meeting on Wednesday, which was called by the union specifically to gauge support, about 400 or so UCT workers rejected mamagements very final non-offer and came out overwhelmingly in favour of strike action.

There were also messages of support from the Student Representative Council, NEHAWU (who may come out in a sympathy strike) and the UCT Workers’ Forum (representing contracted workers).

After the legally required 48-hour notice period, we will be on strike from 2pm this Friday! All in all, this should have management shaking in their boots - let’s see how far they’re willing to take this!

Spirits are high. Watch this space.

If you’ve been following my previous posts about the current round of salary negotiations at the University of Cape Town, you won’t be entirely surprised that the negotiation process has finally reached a stale-mate.

The CCMA (Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration) wasn’t able to resolve the deadlock and at two meetings last week, the members of the UCT Employees’ Union rejected management’s last offer (which was essentially the same as the one before it) and came out in favour of strike action if required.

We’re not on strike yet, but I guess we could be very soon. How interesting would that be! I’m still not entirely convinced that there is enough anger and passion behind this from enough people, but I’m ready to be surprised!

The union has called for a lunch-time meeting of its members this Wednesday as a show of strength and resolve. This is a pretty sensitive time in the university calendar since we have just started orientation week and the registration of new and returning students.

Watch this space and I’ll keep you up to date on how things pan out.

Here are the union’s current demands:

1. Salary Increase - 7% increase of which 5.5.% should be across the board and the remainder of 1.5% granted in terms of the performance reward system.

2. Staff Tuition rate - referred to sub group for recommendations

3. Tax on Bonus - agreed with set of rules for choice and implementation to be agreed by 31 May 2007. Members to be allowed 3 years in which to take a final decision whether to remain on system or not.

4. Parking - increases to be contained to a % not greater than the average salary % increase granted in any one year.

5. Performance development system. The appointment of a sub-group, with 3 reps from either side, to resolve issues with the current system.