Max Gebhardt
Mega-university Unisa is sinking under the weight of deepening labour-related crises. Vice-chancellor Marinus Wiechers says he is considering using deadlock procedures and dispute resolutions allowed under labour law to resolve continuing troubles on campus.
Staff and academics on the Pretoria campus have called for his resignation, saying Wiechers failed to provide effective leadership during recent problems.
“I refuse to accede to the alliance’s demand for my resignation,” he said. The alliance consists of the Black Academic Forum, the National Education Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu), the National Students’ Representative Council and the South African Students’ Congress (Sasco).
Adding to the mounting troubles on campus is the mud-slinging among various professional staff organisations. The largely white South African Parastatal and Tertiary Union (Saptu) recently embarked on a two-day mass action, virtually bringing the university to its knees.
The alliance in response undertook “counter-mass action to the white anti-transformation strike”. It accuses Saptu and the university’s management of attempting to retain the “apartheid status quo”. In the middle, the Unisa management flounders.
Wiechers says neither he nor the campus is under siege: “Obviously, if things are not going at the pace people want, there is only one person to blame — me.”
What has raised temperatures to boiling point in the unions is a single point in a five-point memorandum presented to the university council by the alliance in August. It called for a “moratorium … on all white appointments and promotions”.
The council resolved that a moratorium be placed on all appointments and promotions at Unisa, irrespective of race, pending the outcome of an evaluation by a committee into recent appointments. This brought Saptu out with all guns firing, saying the council’s decision was not legally valid and was a breach of contract because it did not involve Saptu in the decision. The union went on strike.
The alliance then accused the secretary of the university council of falsifying the minutes of the council, and Wiechers of misinterpreting the letter and spirit of the council on the moratorium.
Wiechers dismisses this out of hand. In an open letter to staff, he said: “It is management’s responsibility to lead and guide Unisa through this endeavour [transformation], but management alone cannot achieve success.”
The only point the various unions seem to be able to agree on is that management is not “leading and guiding”. Annelise Hartzenberg, chairman of Saptu, is on record supporting Wiechers. “But we do have critisms of management in general,” she adds.
It’s a sentiment shared by the chairman of the Black Academic Forum, Professor David Mosoma, and the secretary general of the Academic and Professional Staff Association (Apsa), Niko Coetzee.
Apsa’s executive says it has been forced by management’s unilateral conduct and uncompromising attitude to endorse a confrontational stand. Together, the three unions represent more than two- thirds of staff on the Unisa campus.
Mosoma and the alliance are demanding the removal of Wiechers. “The vice-chancellor, who was present at the council meeting, has demonstrably taken sides with Saptu and is, therefore, against the decision and authority of the council,” the alliance says.
Wiechers argues that the council is bound by a collective agreement with the other unions, and says he has been at pains to explain that to the alliance.