NEHAWU IN THE WESTERN CAPE REJECTS THE UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN'S PROPOSED AMENDMENT OF THE ADMISSION POLICY
NEHAWU in the Western Cape pledges its unwavering solidarity with the University of Cape Town students under the leadership of the Progressive Youth Alliance (PYA) including the disadvantaged people of South Africa, who are faced with the prospect of being denied access to the university by its reactionary management. This follows the decision by the university to remove race in its admission policy.
As a transformative workers union, we have always maintained that UCT is amongst the institutions of higher learning that have never embraced the transformation agenda and remained a bastion of white liberal elitism. This latest decision by the management, although repulsive is to be expected.
We want to remind the Council and management of UCT that the university is a public institution that belongs to South Africans in particular and Africans in general. Therefore, any attempt to deny the racial imbalances that exist in South Africa because of its history is both reactionary and senseless.
Our union rejects the plans by the university to remove the use of race in the university's admission policy. The current UCT admission policy is clear that the adopted policy was meant "to provide redress for past racially based discrimination in our society, in our schools and in public higher education; and because we acknowledge that the effects of pre-1994 discrimination remain in our society". The policy further states that "in order to meet this obligation we divide South African applicants (citizens and permanent residents) into categories: those whom we judge to have been affected by inequality and disadvantage (the redress categories), and those who have not (the open category)".
We believe that our current education system and the socio-economic conditions in our country still reflect patterns of deep inequality with race still a major issue. Based on this analysis of reality, there can be no justification for this planned policy shift at UCT.
NEHAWU has also been very aggrieved by the ill-treatment of workers by the university, especially those that work for private service providers such as cleaning, catering, gardening and security. These companies' abuse workers with impunity because they know that the university will not intervene. These companies blatantly and consistently violate the Code of Conduct they have signed with the institution without consequences.
We are therefore calling for the in-sourcing of all the outsourced services. We also demands that workers be paid a living wage and that their inalienable rights be protected.
NEHAWU will therefore join the students in the march against the planned policy changes today on Friday 18 October 2013.
The details of the march are as follows:
Venue: Bremmer Building, UCT
Date: 18 October, 2013
Time: 13:00PM
Members of the media are invited to attend and cover the event.
Statement issued by Luthando Nogcinisa, NEHAWU Western Cape Provincial Secretary, October 18 2013
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