On his first day in office, University of the Witwatersrand’s (Wits’) newly appointed vice-chancellor Professor Adam Habib, was met with opposition and contempt instead of optimism and celebration.

This comes after outsourced workers at the university were grouped together by their employers at the services department for an emergency meeting and presented with termination notices.

The panic that ensued, driven by the looming threat of job losses at the end of June, led to an emergency high-level meeting between the Wits Workers Solidarity Committee (Wits WSC), workers' unions and the new vice-chancellor.

“Instead of engaging seriously around the terrible effects of outsourcing, the new university management under Professor Adam Habib has confirmed its commitment to treating the largest black workforce on campus as disposable, undeserving of human dignity and compassion,” Wits WSC member Tokelo Nhlapo said in a statement.

However, Wits spokesperson Shirona Patel said that the workers’ main concern was that they should keep their jobs with the new cleaning companies, as well as the university no longer outsourcing its workers.

Wits University Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Principal Tawana Kupe said that the university was in the process of negotiating the contracts with two new cleaning companies. He added that Wits was facilitating the discussion process between all stakeholders involved and that the university had requested that the new short-listed companies employ all the workers from Wits’ current service providers. 

The university, however, could not infringe on the decision-making processes of the two new companies’ employment procedures. Kupe assured workers that the university would consider this variable in its decision-making before it finalised any of the contracts. "The University community will be informed as to how many workers have been absorbed by the new providers before a contract is signed,” Kupe said in a statement.

Professor Habib added that Wits had dealt with this matter in a way that respected not only the letter but the substance of its constitution. “We respect the right of all stakeholders to protest, and we have engaged them openly and transparently on this issue. We also urge them to work with us in finding a solution that does not put the university at risk in any way.”

Workers, however, remain disgruntled and a demonstration petitioning the Wits University Senate to intervene has been planned for Wednesday.