Our repudiation of Wits University’s management’s response to our memorandum
About 40 students at Wits University in Johannesburg have gone on an indefinite hunger strike to protest the unfair dismissal of 17 female workers. They were joined by 2,000 students who boycotted the canteen staffed by outsourced workers from the offending company. This is part of a larger campaign to fight the externalisation and casualisation of labour at Wits, and in South Africa generally.
18 May, 2012
In response to the memorandum which we presented to them on the 16th May 2012, Wits University management has adopted the stance that it cannot intervene in the matter of the dismissal of the Royal Mnandi’s 17 black workers. They arrived at this abstentionist position based on the following:
• According to management it would be inappropriate for the university to “interfere” in the affairs of a company independent of the university.
• To threaten to annul the contract with Royal Mnandi Services on grounds not recognized therein could possibly place the university in breach of its legal duties to the company.
• The procedure embarked upon by the company in order to determine whether the dismissal of the workers was valid has been properly conducted in accordance with labour law.
The university management has failed to refute or even acknowledge the argument, which we made in the memorandum, that the dismissal of the workers was unwarranted and thus unjust; whether or not it is in conformity with the law. Our rationale for maintaining that the dismissal was unfair is as follows:
Through their actions the catering workers were upholding an important tenet of democracy, namely that those who would be adversely affected by a decision should be consulted in the process of formulating such a decision. It is self evidently unethical to dismiss those employing reasonable measures to defend a core principle of fair treatment.
Even if the workers' refusal to comply with an instruction is held to have constituted misconduct worthy of some form of punishment; it was not of a sufficiently serious nature to warrant the severity of the sanction resorted to... The general principle that a punishment should fit the crime has clearly not been adhered to in this instance, thus rendering the dismissal unfair if not in law, then in fact. (Our Memo, 16 May)
The management’s tempestuous insistence that its contractual obligations be given pre-eminence over the unfair treatment of workers proves that its barren commitment to uphold the dignity of all on campus is a sham.
Moreover, the only reason the disciplinary process the workers faced is “outside [the university’s"> sphere of operation” is precisely because the management placed it there. A core purpose of outsourcing was in the first instance to insulate the university from the administration of matters pertaining to service workers. This has left workers vulnerable to this kind of abuse of power. The very fact that this is a private company’s “internal matter”, and not ostensibly a university concern, is proof that outsourcing, and by implication those who implemented it, is responsible for the plight of the workers.
Therefore, our demand for the university’s intervention in the matter is merely calling on them to own up to what is in essence their creation. “You must know and own; this thing of darkness I acknowledge mine”.
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