To: "Debate \(E-mail\)" <debate-AT-sunsite.wits.ac.za>
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 10:32:10 +0200
Subject: [alternative-education-unions] =?iso-8859-1?Q?PRESS_ALERT:_OCCUPATION_AT_WITS_UNIVERSITY_OF_VICE_CHANCEL?= =?iso-8859-1?Q?LOR'S_OFFICE_?=



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PRESS ALERT

OCCUPATION OF VICE CHANCELLOR'S OFFICE AT WITS UNIVERSITY

"Bundy will lose his Wits"

The South African Students Congress (SASCO), the Postgraduate Students
Association (PGA) and the National Education, Health and Allied Workers
Union (NEHAWU) are embarking on direct action to force the Administration of
Wits University in Johannesburg to see the folly of its restructuring plan.
Dubbed with millenarian whim Wits 2001 - the neo-liberal restructuring plan
for the University- disregards the interests of students, workers, and
democracy. This is exemplified by the planned retrenchment of 620 workers at
the end of June 2000, planned evictions of students from residences for
non-payment, and the imminent downsizing of the Arts and Education
Faculties.

The administration of the University has in Wits 2001 abdicated its
responsibility to the transformation of higher education and of South Africa
broadly, a responsibility it boasts in the mission statement to which it is
committed. Its version of transformation will see the doors of learning
slammed shut to students who cannot afford the costs of the private,
contracted service providers that the University will bring in to replace
the 620 workers. It will also see "unprofitable" teaching and research
downsized in favor of an orientation of the University towards big business
and the rich.

Wits 2001 means that Wits will be privatized - instead of being a public
sector asset with social responsibilities, it will be a profit-making
company that benefits at the expense of research and the working class.
This is informed by a neo-liberal agenda that puts profit before people.

The Administration claims it has consulted widely and painstakingly in the
drafting of Wits 2001. It does not choose to mention that students and
workers have in every of these pseudo-consultation sessions voted against
the retrenchments and outsourcing, and that our recommendations fell on deaf
ears.

Vice Chancellor Bundy, Deputy Vice Chancellor Leila Patel and other
administrators have forced SASCO, the PGA and NEHAWU to give management no
choice but to hear the voices of students and workers. After 4 months of
lunch hour picketing, the administration has only proved itself intransigent
and arrogant, refusing to reconsider the future it has chosen for the
University.

Taking direct action, therefore, SASCO and the PGA (not Nehawu) are today
taking occupation of Vice Chancellor Bundy's office as part of the campaign
to demand:

§ an immediate moratorium on retrenchments and on outsourcing
§ the immediate halt to the restructuring process until students and workers
are truly consulted in the third academic quarter of the year,
§ a suspension of the activities of the consultants commissioned to effect
restructuring on campus, and
§ a commitment from the University administration not to evict students from
residences.

Simultaneously, the residents of Men's Residence will be marching from the
residence to deliver a memorandum to the Vice Chancellor demanding the halt
of restructuring of residences and the guarantee that services to students
in-residence are unchanged in the new quarter. The Men's Residence House
Committee chairperson was notified that he should be cautioning students who
have not paid their fees not to return to University after the July vacation
because they will find their rooms locked. The House Committee has correctly
tied these effective evictions to the restructuring process and SASCO, the
PGA and NEHAWU acts therefore, on the behalf of residence students
threatened by the neo-liberal fiscal brutality being implemented by Bundy.

The Senate House Concourse has also been appropriated as a space for action.
620 crosses have been stuck to the floor of the Concourse, each representing
a job that is threatened. SASCO, the PGA and NEHAWU will not allow this
moribund presentiment to be realized.

Phone Sibongile on 083 694-5558 - for direct comment from the occupiers of
the Vice Chancellor's office - or Nicolas Dieltiens on 082 295-2483



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