Management and staff of the Vaal University of Technology in Vanderbijlpark have deadlocked on wage negotiations. The institution’s main and satellite campuses have shut down.
Workers are demanding a 10% salary increase. Management is offering 3.5%.
For Velaphi Makhubele, and scores of other VUT students, it is crunch time. They were meant to be sitting for exams.
However, for this second year engineering student, the strike has heightened anxiety levels.
“It is really affecting me because I have to keep on studying. My wish was to get done with exams, and I panic a lot and get more stressed.”
The strike has thrown the exam timetable into disarray.
“We don’t know when we are going to write. Exam anxiety isn’t nice, my timetable has been set, my schedule is mixed. I haven’t prepared for my Tuesday exam, ” says another student Boitumelo Marope.
The main campus has been a no go zone. Four other VUT facilities are also affected.
Staffers have downed tools for a second day. “It is difficult for us; everything is increasing, petrol, food, clothes. We are earning little money, we are asking 10% across the board,” says VUT staffer Ellen Ramafoko.
Another staff member Denise De Leeuw says, “The petrol has gone up, how will we survive with 10%? They didn’t budget for an increase and that is not fair towards the staff.”
Unions and management have deadlocked.
“As we speak they are unable to articulate themselves even in issues of salary increment, the very same 3.5%. With the pace they are moving we are not able to budge and we won’t budge on issues of salary increment,” says National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union’s (Nehawu) Joseph Radebe.
National Tertiary Education Union’s Martin Joubert says, “There is enough money, they budgeted wrongly. Our standpoint is that we will stand with our colleagues.”
University management is yet to comment.
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