Academics at Wits' end

Daisy Matlou has four degrees, yet she has to make ends meet by selling slimming products and handbags.

Matlou, a senior tutor in the engineering faculty at the University of the Witwatersrand, is among hundreds of academics who are downing tools this week in a bid to get a pay hike.

"By the middle of the month I am forced to use my overdraft," said Matlou, who has a bachelor degree, honours degrees in sociology and psychology and a master's in education.

She is not the only Wits academic who believes the pay at the institution is far less than at South Africa's other universities. Several others warned that low morale, because of poor pay, was seriously threatening Wits' research output as well as its academic reputation. Wits slipped from 360 to 399 in the QS World University rankings last year. The University of Cape Town (UCT) moved from 161 to 156.

The rankings are based on a university's research and teaching quality as well as the employability of its graduates.

Several academics have left the institution for better salary packages at the University of Cape Town and the University of Johannesburg (UJ), among others, and some even left to join elite private schools.

The Sunday Times has also established that:

• At least 71 of the 112 professors at Wits earn between R664380 and R747430. Their counterparts at UJ start off with R20 000 more annually;
• A total of 157 senior lecturers at Wits are on the R433920-to-R488160 salary scale compared to their 40 colleagues at UJ, who earn between R470476 and R488333; and
• Of the 190 associate professors at Wits, 111 are paid between R536 930 and R604 050. At least 178 of their colleagues at North West University earn R612 254.

Rob Moore, deputy vice-chancellor for advancement and partnerships at Wits, said one or two other institutions had very large war chests that enabled them to pay higher salaries.

"We want the best academics in the country and from the globe. If we had the money to buy them, we would."

Moore said the university would be negotiating with the unions to avert Tuesday's strike.

Professor David Glasser, one of South Africa's top scientists, who has given 48 years' service to Wits, said the problem was the university was placing emphasis on policies and procedures instead of people.

"Academics are not regarded as the most important people in the university. There are far too many administrators."

He said colleagues had told him they were refraining from doing research because the approval process was too cumbersome.

"Morale is very low and people I deal with are very disgruntled. The senior management of the university, in my view, has shown very poor leadership."

Figures obtained from some universities indicate that UCT and the University of Stellenbosch are the top-paying institutions. Professors and associate professors at UCT are paid R771584 and R614221, respectively, and those at Stellenbosch receive R720000 and R575000.

The salary packages of professors and associate professors at the University of Pretoria are modest in comparison. Professors earn between R538097 and R632494 and associate professors get from R445887 to R545713, excluding medical aid.

The Academic Staff Association of Wits University, which has 750 members, and two other unions will embark on a one-day strike on Tuesday, the second this month.

It has declared a pay dispute with management.

Professor David Dickinson, association president, said if Wits wanted to become a global university or even the best in South Africa, it needed to pay competitive salaries.

He said the university had a surplus of R100-million last year, of which at least R30-million had been from savings on the salary bill.

Dickinson said the entry-level salaries for lecturers and senior lecturers at Wits were not competitive. In addition, academics did not get enough money to conduct research.

"We are tired of being told by senior management that we are lazy. We feel deeply undervalued and disrespected."

UJ confirmed that it now employed some academics from Wits, adding that it had become the "university of choice".

The university said it offered competitive salaries and that they were reviewed regularly.

"Academics also benefit from performance-based rewards and incentive schemes. "

According to UCT spokeswoman Gerda Kruger, the university is "the institution of choice for many academics" because of its competitive salaries, support for academic development and strong research output.