Unions at Vista University have formally declared a dispute with the institution over its planned retrenchment of 20% of its staff
David Macfarlane
In a bizarre move, Vista University is planning to shed 365 of its staff at the same time as the government proceeds with plans to dismantle the institution.
Even more bizarrely, there has been no communication between the government and Vista on the university’s drastic plans.
Vista’s unions formally declared a dispute this week with the university over its massive downsizing project, which include retrenching nearly 20% of its staff members at the end of May.
Many at the institution are asking why the university is embarking on such wide-ranging restructuring now, given the government’s recently announced intention to dismantle it within a year.
Kept entirely in the dark, bewildered and demoralised Vista staff say senior management seems unable to accept that the university will not exist for much longer. Staff also suspect that the downsizing plans are a last-ditch measure aimed largely at protecting the jobs of senior management.
In total 365 staff face retrenchment within six weeks including more than a third of academic staff.
Although the Vista unions served formal notice on Wednesday declaring a dispute, vice-chancellor Professor CT Keto says that “as far as Vista University is concerned there is no dispute. However, it is normal labour relations procedure that when there are deadlocks, resolution agreements provide for the handling of disputes.”
Keto confirmed that retrenchments will take effect at the end of next month.
The Ministry of Education’s national plan for higher education, released last month, targets Vista for “unbundling”: each of the university’s campuses (spread over three provinces) is to be incorporated into a nearby university or technikon.
The plan says Vista’s 37% decline in student enrolment over the past five years draws the university’s continued viability into question. It observes too that Vista’s complex structure with satellite campus operating more or less independently of its central office affects “the overall efficiency of the institution”.
But in February staff at Vista lifted the veil on some compelling further reasons for unbundling the university, alleging a history of “mismanagement, embezzlement of funds, abuse of power and nepotism” in a letter sent to President Thabo Mbeki, Minister of Education Kader Asmal and Parliament’s public accounts committee (Mail & Guardian, February 9 to 15).
Several members of the academic staff say they are in favour of unbundling, given the steady deterioration of the institution.
But Vista management expressed immediate opposition to the national education plan and its council appointed a task team in mid-March to formulate alternatives for presentation to Asmal despite Asmal’s insistence that the higher education plan is “not up for further consultation and certainly not for negotiation”.
The plan makes no reference to retrenchments, but Vista had as far back as November set in motion a downsizing process intended to slash the university’s expenses by reducing staff numbers and whittling away at various benefits (staff have this year found their leave days reduced by 10, for example).
The Ministry of Education says in formulating the national education plan it was not aware of Vista’s retrenchment plans.
Asked whether the university had discussed retrenchments with the government, Keto replied that “the Ministry of Education is consulted on policy issues. Operational requirement issues, such as personnel, [are] the responsibility of Vista University management and the council.”
Vista’s dire financial condition was the subject of a meeting earlier this month of deans, campus principals, heads of academic departments and directors at the central campus.
Keto told the meeting there was only R4-million in the university’s bank account at January 1 far short of the R40-million needed to pay staff salaries until receipt of the next government subsidy.
Keto also said it was non-negotiable that the salary bill be reduced by 20%; the numbers of staff to be retrenched had been calculated on a department-by-department basis; and that heads of departments would soon have to identify which individuals would go. This would be on a “last in, first out” basis, according to a letter Keto sent to Vista’s unions in March, in terms of the Labour Relations Act’s requirement that employers intending to retrench inform unions and explain their intentions.
This letter says that “approximately 300 employees” will be retrenched a figure that has escalated to 365 within a month.
Many staff express bewilderment at how this process relates to the government’s intentions for the university. Others allege that Vista’s “top-heavy management, consisting of the same people who created the present mess”, according to one academic, are primarily concerned with saving their own skins.
Keto says “there is no relation between the proposed retrenchments and government’s intention to unbundle Vista University, for these are two distinctly separate issues”.
The planned retrenchment bloodbath does not extend to senior management, who last month had their five-year contracts renewed.