FREE UKZN

It's wednesday, and day 3 of a strike of the staff [and some students] at University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, where the Centre for Civil Society has its home. "FREE UKZN", "WE DEMAND ACADEMIC FREEDOM", "NEGOTIATION IS A RIGHT"... just some of the great slogans on union t-shirts today.


UKZN has undergone some recent restructuring, where 4 colleges/universities have combined under one entity. The biggest grievances right now stem from Vice Chancellor Makgoba's business-like approach to running the new university, including doubling student registration fees from 2000 to 4000 Rand, and giving staff only a 4% raise instead of a previously negotiated 8%. There are also large numbers of retrenchments (staff contracts being ended or not extended) meaning that lecturers and professors are being forced to do more with less.


Makgoba is also at the heart of a conflict to reinstate well-known activist academic Ashwin Desai to a research post at CCS. Desai was "banned" from University of Durban-Westville in the mid-90s because of his involvement in a union campaign and strike then, but the previous chancellor at UKZN had allowed him to return. Ashwin had been a researcher at CCS before leaving to apply for a new position. Makgoba, who says that he as vice-chancellor does not have the power to "unban" Desai, has held up Ashwin's re-hiring, and has criticized support for Ashwin from academics like Noam Chomsky, who he alluded to getting old and contracting dementia. [See Sunday Times article: So Many Questions, and an op-ed supporting Ashwin's reinstatement: Makgoba should fight for Desai]

(ashwin, speaking at howard college Tuesday)

Makgoba is also thought to be behind National Intelligence Agency inquiries into Richard Pithouse and Fazel Khan's support and work with Abahlali baseMjondolo, and although Makgoba has pronounced that no academics should be working with the shackdwellers movement--this includes Banana City settlement (see below) that sits inside the boundaries of Westville campus-- he continues to say that he supports his academic staff in whatever they choose to study and write about. Staff at UKZN do not believe in Makgoba's committment to academic freedom.


The University council so far will not negotiate with the union committee. The strike rally was set to remain outside the administration building at Westville's campus today until Makgoba and council decide to meet with representatives. It was a hot day today, so i'm hoping for progress and that Makgoba and co. didn't wait out the sun to take care of the crowd.

Behind the scenes, Makgoba has been calling Fazel and other union reps to set up a meeting to negotiate. But in multiple instances, he has cancelled these meetings just as they are about to occur. One of his right hand men, Professor Chetty, a member of the sociology department, sent an email to staff earlier in the week that said that no one but 2 chosen university representatives were to talk to the press. This astounded a great deal of the university community, and angered a whole lot of South African sociologists, who are gearing up to host the international sociology conference here in July. Chetty is the former head of the SA Sociology Association, and present leadershave taken his statements as an affront to their hard work to bring a number of radical intellectuals to the country this summer.

(fazel khan, sociologist, union organizer extraordinaire)

The administration has been telling the media that only 10% of staff has been involved in the strike, and that today was the last day. Tomorrow may be quite a wake-up call.

{photos thanks to amanda and the good folks at CCS, more at http://southafrica.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/9673.php, and http://southafrica.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/9648.php)

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thursday update: strike news on front page of IndyMedia South Africa

Stanley Naicker, a middle aged staff member at the University, who was also involved in the strike action in 1996, was arrested and later released yesterday for climbing into a window in the admin building to try to confront makgoba. his story is here.

Due to the strike, no one's getting email access... so it may be awhile before i can post/write again. til soon.