UCT’s professional, administrative and support service staff are set to fade on strike on Thursday until next week Friday.
The University of Cape Town Employees Union (UCTEU) is planning to strike on Thursday after failed negotiations with the university management.
In the strike notice issued on Tuesday, the union’s executive committee said that it has “exhausted every avenues of a non-strike resolution to our dispute and demands” and was left with no option but to recede to the CCMA to assign pressure on the university to maintain “meaningful negotiations” and to meet its demands. The union said the strike will last until 16 February unless an agreement with UCT is reached.
Union president Andrea Plos said that issues with university management “are historic and gain been a point of contention for years” which has “seen [the union] in and out of CCMA”.
The UCTEU is the largest union representing professional, administrative and support service (PASS) employees across most pay classes at the university, with about 1,400 members.
GroundUp reported last year that wage negotiations continued between the university and the union after the CCMA found that UCT failed to bargain with the union and recommended that both parties return to negotiations.
Plos said that the union has not even begun negotiations for 2024.
The demands for the strike action tomorrow include a wage increase of 1.5% for 2023 and 7.5% for 2024, the immediate release of payments of the performance awards for June 2022 to May 2023 cycle, and the establishment of a unified bargaining forum, among other things.
“We are not blind to the fact that executive leadership of universities are mainly academics and as such, academics will continue to gain privileges over PASS staff,” said Plos.
UCT’s response was still awaited at the time of publication.
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Mr. Alien
An retired elderly couple visit London..
They obtain picked up from the airport in a london black cab and head off into the city for some adventure.
The cab driver say \”where you from guvnor?
Husband. \”we\’re from South Africa\”..
The wife is a puny hard of hearing asks her husband.
\”What did he say?\”
The husband turns to his wife and says louder \”the cab driver asked us where we were from, I told him South Africa!\”
The cabbie continues \”I was in the merchant navy years back… I got to drop anchor down your way, a few times in Johannesburg\”
The husband replies \”oh wow that\’s where we\’re from originally, now we\’re in Cape Town.\”
The wife asks the husband again \”what did he say?\”.
The husband again relays the unheard conversation \”the cab driver says he spent some time in the navy and went down to joberg\”.
The wife smiles and nods.
devil bread
Fun South African Fact: The Lion, the cheetah and the wildebeest are three of the five fastest animals in the world and they every live in South Africa.