Unisa management is monitoring staff phone calls, e-mails and faxes to ascertain who is communicating with the media, the Mail&Guardian has learnt.
At the same time, management is attempting to “close down” a staff union that has been supportive of staff with grievances against management, a union official has told the M&G.
“We’re afraid to use our telephones,” said a senior academic. “We find ourselves whispering while making internal calls — as though that makes a difference. This shows the level of intimidation operating here now. It’s a reversion to apartheid security police tactics.”
Management is also trying to “close down” the Academic and Professional Staff Association (Apsa), says the union’s general secretary, Nic Coetzee.
He says management has informed Apsa it will cease providing the funds that pay the salaries of himself and administrative staff.
These funds are part of a recognition agreement between Apsa and the university, and management is in “wholesale breach” of the agreement, Coetzee charges, saying that there are contracted procedures for varying details of the agreement that management is failing to follow. He says management has also indicated that the union must pay rental for its office space on campus. Apsa intends to mount a legal challenge to management’s actions, Coetzee says.
Staff first learned that their telephone, fax and e-mail communications were being monitored when vice-chancellor Dr Barney Pityana addressed the executive committee of senate (Senex) on May 30. This was in the week after an M&G report disclosing that after Pityana assumed office in November, the university had incurred R1,7-million in penalties to cancel the sale for R6-million of a mansion so that Pityana could use it as his official residence.
The story detailed several other expenditures, some ongoing but originating before Pityana’s arrival, such as payments to Unisa councillors that the Office of the Auditor General last year found irregular and recommended be recovered. The M&G’s story quoted well-placed sources as saying such expenditures had adversely affected Unisa’s financial position.
One of about 30 senior academics at the Senex meeting told the M&G this week that Pityana said the monitoring of communications had identified four academics, plus Coetzee, who had been talking to the press.
He allegedly said the media were intent on “destroying” Unisa, and that staff who communicated with the media were also intent on “destroying” Unisa. At the meeting, the university’s acting vice-principal, Professor David Masoma, said he was doing the investigating, the Senex member told the M&G.
Two weeks later, Pityana repeated these points, and again referred to the monitoring of staff phone calls, e-mails and faxes, in a meeting with Apsa representatives on June 13, Coetzee said this week.
Also at this meeting were three members of senior management and four Apsa members, including Coetzee.
“This was an attempt to intimidate staff and vilify me,” Coetzee says.
He and another senior academic told the M&G of a history of “increasing hostility” on the part of management towards the union, related in part to the union’s support of staff members with serious complaints against management.
Apsa is supporting former Unisa professor Margaret Orr in the sexual harassment case she launched last year against council chairperson McCaps Motimele. The case is due to be heard shortly. The union also supported senior lecturer Dr McGlory Speckman in his high court action against the university, following his failure last year to be appointed deputy dean of theology. This was despite his being procedurally elected, he argued in his court application.
His application said that the Council Committee on Human Resources exceeded its powers in ruling that Professor Lizo Jafta, who had polled 12 votes to Speckman’s 40 in the faculty election last year, be appointed deputy dean. Last month the Pretoria High Court ordered that Jafta’s appointment was invalid and be set aside, and that Unisa pay the costs of the action.
In a further twist to this case, Unisa responded to the judgement by suspending Jafta as deputy dean — but immediately appointed him acting deputy dean as of the day of the judgement, June 14.
Speckman’s legal adviser told the M&G he considers this action “illegal”.
“Apsa’s defiance has consistently been interpreted [by management] as anti-black,” says Coetzee, who says more than half the members of another Unisa union, the Black Forum, are also Apsa members.
Responding to questions the M&G faxed to Pityana, Unisa’s head of media affairs, Doreen Gough, said: “Dr Pityana is declining to comment to the Mail & Guardian. As spokesperson of the university, I am prepared only to comment on the monitoring of faxes, telephone calls and e-mails.
“The university has always monitored the above, since the telephones, faxes and e-mails are property of the university. However, the monitoring is only done on the number and duration of faxes, telephone calls and e-mails, since the accounts for each department have to be approved by the head of department. Since our electronic systems are computerised, the numbers dialled and e-mail addresses are also recorded.”