Battle continues for DUT contract workers
Contract workers and security staff at DUT continue their protests and are being supported by students.
DUT’s contract workers gathered across the road from Steve Biko campus this morning in a peaceful protest.
A memorandum, the third one since the 4 February when the initial protest began, was sent to DUT on Monday, setting out the contract workers grievances.
A cleaner who was arrested on 4 February, spoke to Berea Mail on condition of anonymity, “We returned to work on 17 February after being advised by our union.” He added that his employer had sent an sms after the protest saying all contracts were over. “Later that day we got a second sms saying we should ignore the first message,” he explained.
The workers said they returned to work on 17 February.
Meanwhile 24 security guards were suspended without pay for participating in protests and strike action. The security guards have further internal woes and many changed unions from Abaqobi to the SALIPSWU after feeling betrayed by the “union.”
A security guard was arrested on Monday for allegedly inciting violence after trying to speak to staff about union matters. Since then workers have grown increasingly incensed and planned to go to court to bail out their colleague. “We all contributed to bail our colleague out and met at the market at 5am on Wednesday morning however, Mi7 vehicles and their armed guards asked for one of our guards by name. We were waiting for all the cleaning and security staff to come together so we could go to court but the Mi7 armed guards came after our colleague and then beat him up and tried to beat all of us with batons abnd then took our colleague.”
The cleaner said the Mi7 security had no right to attack them near the market area as it was not part of the campus, a sentiment shared by fellow cleaners and security guards.
A security guard, who had been among those suspended, told Berea Mail “We went to the Berea police and asked them to accompany us to DUT security to find out about our colleague. A security manager denied being at the market but we had pictures of the four vehicles. They didn’t want to listen to us and took our colleague to the station and charged him for inciting violence and assault,” a security guard said.
“We had to mobilise after that and are glad that the students are supporting us,” the guard said.
Students who were on the fringes of the peaceful protest told Berea Mail they were unable to be photographed or named, for fear of intimidation, however one did say the leadership of DUT student bodies, oganisations and clubs would meet with contact staff leadership on Sunday afternoon to discuss a way forward.
