UCT students march to Parliament calling for national move to insourcing
Students and workers from the University of Cape Town (UCT) on Thursday afternoon made their way to Parliament, this time to demand government respond to their call for an end to outsourcing across the country.
The government has deliberately ignored our call for ending outsourcing nationally,” said Masixole Mlandu, activist and member of the Rhodes Must Fall movement.
Between 100 and 200 students and workers made their way down Sir Lowry Road in Cape Town en route to Parliament where they planned to hand over a memorandum of demands.
This, a few hours after UCT announced it had signed an agreement with the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) to – once all contracts had ended – insource all services. It also came roughly an hour after UCT vice-chancellor Dr Max Price addressed media on the latest developments at the university.
Mlandu, and a Nehawu shop steward Thembisa Xeketwana, said they were pleased with the university’s move in relation to outsourcing.
“It is a big achievement as the struggle of outsourcing has been there for years,” said Mlandu.
Xeketwana said she and her fellow workers were “very happy” with the agreement signed by the university and Nehwau.
However, both had their reservations.
“We must be skeptical of any decisions or any strategies to bring workers to the table without students,” said Mlandu while Xeketwana added that until free education was guaranteed and decision-making processes by the university was more transparent, workers would not be entirely satisfied.
Mlandu added that UCT on a managerial level was setting the tone for other institutions, as was its responsibility “as the top university on the continent”.
“Other institutions can look at UCT and say, ‘If UCT can do it, why not?'”.
Mlandu said that in addition to demanding government respond to its call to end all outsourcing, they were marching to parliament to “demand the state withdraw its charges against students arrested throughout this week”. Allegations of police brutality were also being condemned by the marchers.
Furthermore, Mlandu said their stance on fee increments had not changed.
“Our call for free education has not faded away just because there has been a zero percent increment”