Staff in move to widen protests

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This development comes after a mediation meeting, scheduled for yesterday, was cancelled by college management yesterday, just hours after protests at the college's High Street and Park Avenue campuses in Uitenhage.

National Education, Health and Allied Workers' Union (Nehawu) affiliated staff and students - who have been at loggerheads with management over a number of issues - shut down the two campuses.

The ripple effect was felt at the Grahamstown campus, where delays were reported in the ongoing registration process, with the staff trying to get all workers to abandon their jobs to shake up management.

Riot police were on standby as the lecturers entered their fourth week of striking yesterday, with no teaching having taken place since the start of the academic year on 20 January.

Students, who have thrown their weight behind the protests and are fighting management over bursary allocations, have had their application and registration period extended to today.

The college has been plagued by protests and campus closures since last year as lecturers put pressure on management to effect, among other things, a collective agreement calling for their salary adjustments.

Illegal protests last month led to 66 lecturers losing their jobs after failing to arrive for their disciplinary hearings a few days before.

Nehawu branch spokesman Sandile Sanda said union members would not back down until all their demands were met.

EMC spokeswoman Elmari van der Merwe confirmed the cancellation of the meeting, but declined to comment further.

Sanda said while the college was rated the best further education and training institution in the Eastern Cape and second-best in the country in terms of results, its staff was the lowest paid.

"A lecturer here gets paid an average R12,500 a month, while our peers at the Port Elizabeth College are getting about R23,000.

"We have been told that this should have been addressed and adjusted a long time ago, but it hasn't happened."

Staff grievances also included allegations of fraud, corruption, nepotism and cronyism, and a lack of staff transformation, despite 99% of students being black.