JOHANNESBURG, April 2 (ANA) – The insourcing process at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) has been successfully concluded and the last cohort of 640 cleaning staff became new UJ employees as they commenced work on Saturday.
Since the process started in 2015, the university accelerated the insourcing of outsourced workers, with improved working conditions and benefits extended to their children, the UJ said in a statement on Sunday.
Outsourced workers and their children who qualified for further studies enjoyed the same benefit as all university employees where they were exempt from paying 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,” UJ deputy vice chancellor: employees and student affairs Tumi Mketi said.
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 2017 and we are proud that this deadline was achieved and concluded two months ahead of time,” she said.
A well-considered insourcing plan was developed which included an extensive fact finding analysis to determine the appropriate operating model, considering best practice in effective and efficient functioning in the insourcing implementation plan.
The university insourced the workers in phases. The first phase involved adherence to the criteria determined in terms of the agreement entered into in November 2015, which included employees who were permanently employed by service providers and who provided services to the university as per the agreement and commitment during November 2015, and employees who had permanent residential status and/or confirmed South African citizenship.
A total of 38 gardening and grounds workers were the first to be insourced in June 2016, followed by 378 security service workers in October 2016. The insourcing process was now concluded by the inclusion of the cleaning services staff.
“We are pleased to bring these workers into the UJ staff complement, which saw some doubling their monthly income. This step has gone a long way to improving the standard of living of the workers and their families,” Mketi said.
– African News Agency (ANA)
