UJ concludes insourcing process

The insourcing process at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) has been successfully concluded‚ with the last cohort of 640 cleaning staff becoming new UJ employees‚ the university says.

A thousand-plus outsourced workers have benefited from the process.

The university was rocked by protests in late 2015 by students and workers demanding an end to the outsourcing of workers. The protests led to the arrests of about 141 students and workers for contravening a court order prohibiting protests on the UJ campus during exams.

Since the process commenced in 2015‚ the university accelerated the insourcing of outsourced workers‚ with improved working conditions and benefits extended to their children. Outsourced workers and their children who qualify for further studies now enjoy the same benefit as other university employees where they are exempt from the payment of tuition fees.

“The University unequivocally supported the quest to provide decent working conditions‚ fair wages and improved benefits for these outsourced workers. This is evident with the insourcing of Gardening and Grounds‚ Security Services and Cleaning Services which were traditionally delivered as outsourced services‚” said Tumi Mketi‚ Deputy Vice Chancellor: Employees and Student Affairs at UJ.

She pointed out that much work on the insourcing process had been undertaken since the establishment of the inclusive Insourcing Task Team in November 2015.

“The University set a target to finalise the insourcing of all concerned workers by the end of June 2017and we are proud that this deadline was achieved and concluded two months ahead of time‚” Mketi said.

“A total of 38 gardening and Grounds workers were the first to have been insourced in June 2016‚ followed by 378 Security Service workers in October 2016. The insourcing process is now concluded by the inclusion of the cleaning services staff‚” she added.