Staff Reporter
The University of the Free State State (UFS) says it will gradually hire workers who are currently employed by different service providers at the institution starting early next year as it steps up efforts to insource all its labour.
UFS Rector and Vice-Chancellor Professor Francis Petersen told a virtual media briefing on Thursday that plans to insource the workers have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic as the academic programme was disrupted for the greater part of the year.
“We have said we will insource from 2021 and it will be in a phased manner,” said Petersen.
“We all know the impact COVID-19 has had on higher education and the economy in general,” he explained.
“We have been in continuous conversation with the Workers Student Forum since June.
“We will still insource but we will insource at a later date. What we don’t want to do is to insource all the workers and then, a month later, I call for a Section 189 (retrenchment) because we can’t sustain our salary budget.”
There have been growing concerns by most of the outsourced workers whose contracts expire at the end of this as they feared they won’t have jobs in the new year.
This saw some of them picketing at the university in past few days demanding to be hired by the UFS.
“The contracts of the service providers they work for will be extended. So, they still have jobs. This will allow us to implement the insourcing gradually. We do not want to rush it,” said Petersen.
He said the 2020 academic programme will run into early next year to allow all students to finalise their studies.
Returning students will be expected back on March 1, 2021 while those starting their first year will begin two weeks later around March 15.
The vice chancellor said given that COVID-19 will still be an issue in the coming year, not all students will be expected to be on campus at all times as the university will have to observe all health protocols aimed at curbing the spread of the disease.
“The country will still be on lockdown… so some students may have to continue studying online,” he pointed out.
Petersen said since the country went to Level 1 of the lockdown, the UFS has allowed about 67 percent of the students back on campus while others continue studying remotely.