Subject: AUT: URGENT CALL FOR INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY - SOUTH AFRICA
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2000 18:39:07 SAST


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URGENT CALL FOR INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT

**NOW IS THE TIME ** URGENT ** URGENT **

Issued on  Wednesday, 07 June 2000

On February 25, 2000, the Council of the University of the
Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, decided to retrench more than
620 workers - a quarter of the entire workforce - and outsource their
jobs to private contractors. The retrenchments will be completed by 30
June 2000. The decision was based on a highly controversial review by
management consultants, which opponents charge was shoddy and biased
against labour.

The University of the Witwatersrand decision is one in a series of
attacks on workers jobs and unions in post-apartheid South Africa, the
victims being mainly thousands of black workers and their independent
unions. Tertiary Education  and public sector workers are the most
hardest hit.

The National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu), the
main campus union, appeals to its brothers and sisters in the
international labour and progressive movement to come to its aid in the
fight against the spectre of job loss.

BACKGROUND
Nehawu, which is affiliated to the Congress of South African Trade
Unions (Cosatu), has committed itself to fighting the decision to
retrench and outsource jobs.

Retrenchments will throw whole families into poverty. Outsourcing  will
undermine working conditions in the affected jobs - and all the gains
won by the union for these workers - by replacing secure, union jobs
with casualised , flexible labour hired by outsourcing companies on a
low wage/minimum benefit basis. Wages, for instance, are likely to fall
by at least 30% in the affected departments. Further, it is unlikely in
the extreme that most of the retrenched campus workers will be
re-employed by the outsourcing companies.

Given that the majority of affected workers are black, the effect will
also be to reinforce the legacy of the apartheid past. In particular, it
will undermine attempts to institute employment equity for black workers
who were the main victims of apartheid.

Further, most of the workers to be retrenched are Nehawu stalwarts, and
we can only interpret the management's decision to outsource as strongly
informed by a drive to smash the union on the campus. Nehawu has never
been forgiven for its militant struggles of 1993 and 1995 against the
management, which the managers charge was "bad for the image of the
university."

We recognise that the retrenchments are part of a broader process of
neo-liberal restructuring at the University of the Witwatersrand, summed
up by the "Wits 2001" plan. The 620 retrenchments are part of a package
of "reforms" that will downsize unprofitable disciplines, students and
staff in favour of a University orientated towards the needs of big
business and wealthy students. Contract lecturers, the social sciences,
and students from working class backgrounds who cannot afford to pay
full tuition fees: all of these under the  gun if Nehawu fails.

Certainly, the University must change, but it must do so in ways that
benefit workers and the poor, rather than in ways that marginalise and
exploit ordinary people.

But the effect of the "Wits 2001" plan will be to sideline goals such as
a decent working environment, access to higher education and  critical
intellectual activity in favour of an orientation towards the needs of
the privileged and the effective privatisation of the University of the
Witwatersrand.

Against the neo-liberal agenda!
For decent conditions in a post-apartheid university!

WHAT WE WILL DO
Nehawu has repeatedly raised its concerns with management in discussions
and negotiations both in 1999 and 2000. But our voices have fallen on deaf
ears, and so, we will resort to a decisive campaign of action.

We have been holding pickets for more than three months. Now we will
move towards a combination of legal proceedings and mass worker/
student/academic  mobilisation to force the management to halt the
retrenchments.

WHAT YOU CAN DO
Nehawu has issued a national and international appeal for support  in
its struggle to save jobs. In the days of globalisation, we must fight
against neo-liberalism from above with workers' solidarity and action
from below.

To help us you can:

· circulate this message as far and wide as possible and publicise
the issue in your local press and community

· pass resolutions in your local union or trades council or
student action group expressing your support for our struggle

· send faxes and e-mail to Colin Bundy, the Vice Chancellor of the
University, denouncing the retrenchments. His details are:

Phone: +27+11 716-3200/2955
Fax: +27+11 339 8215
Email: 160CJB-AT-atlas.wits.ac.sa

Don't forget to send us a copy of your message!

  send messages of support to Nehawu and the affected workers

Phone/ Fax: +27+11 716-3825
Email: kgaugelo-AT-nehawu.org.sa, tebogo-AT-nehawu.org.sa,
  and resist-AT-africamail.com

· protest at South African embassies against the anti-worker,
neo-liberal restructuring of the University of the Witwatersrand

· demand that your local college or university write a letter to
Colin Bundy expressing its opposition to the retrenchments and 
restructuring.

FOR REGULAR E-MAIL UPDATES ON OUR STRUGGLE:
subscribe to Resist_Wits2001-AT-onelist.com by sending a blank message to
Resist_Wits2001-subscribe-AT-onelist.com

Yours in Struggle

Fikile Majola

General Secretary
NEHAWU





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