Classes will finally resume for Walter Sisulu University (WSU) students on Tuesday 10 September after the institution was brought to its knees during strike lasting almost seven weeks.
Classes will finally resume for Walter Sisulu University (WSU) students on Tuesday 10 September after the institution was brought to its knees during strike lasting almost seven weeks.
Campus life was disrupted while lecturers and administrative staff stayed away from work because of a wage dispute.
On Thursday 5 September WSU's labour unions the National Education, Health and Allied Workers' Union (Nehawu) and the National Tertiary Education Union reached an agreement with management.
Nehawu media liaison officer Sizwe Pamla says the agreement will see workers receive a 5% annual increase, backdated to the first of January 2013. Workers were demanding wage increases between 8%-10%. "As much as we are not satisfied with the offer there were lots of issues that we had to take into consideration, especially the fact that the learning of the students was severely compromised over the last five weeks," Pamla said.
The dissatisfied workers had to accept the offer and come up with a recovery plan as to how to best assist the students to recover the teaching time lost during the strike. After a desperate appeal by Mthatha Anglican Bishop Sitembele Mzamane for government intervention, saying it was painful and horrifying that seven weeks had passed without a “healthy” resolution, President Jacob Zuma appointed Minister in the Presidency, Collins Chabane, to help solve the WSU crisis.
The labour strike began on 23 July.
