News24 reports that the National Education, Health and Allied Workers' Union (Nehawu) has denied the University of SA’s (Unisa’s) claim that protesters disrupted a graduation ceremony on Tuesday.

In a statement, Unisa advised that it had postponed all scheduled graduation ceremonies and that alternative arrangements would be made for graduates who were inconvenienced by the disruption. Unisa spokesperson Victor Dlamini indicated that management was talking to Nehawu about the issues that had led to the disruption as well as rules of engagement when employees exercised their right to protest. But Nehawu claimed the venue had been double booked. Nehawu's Unisa secretary, Tshembani Baloyi, said: "We have apologised numerous times and said that we did not necessarily disrupt the graduations. What happened was, on Friday we asked for permission to use the venue from management ... which we received, and it was signed. Only for us to find when our meeting was about to start that the graduations were also taking place in the very same hall. When we realised there was a [double] booking, we opted [to] have a discussion with the employer to try and resolve this issue." He added that Nehawu's protest stemmed from claims the institution had failed to honour a wage agreement that was signed on 17 January 2022. "We call on the management of Unisa to honour the signed collective agreement and pay our members and workers what is due to them as per the signed collective agreement which is binding to all parties. Failure to do so will leave us with no option other than [to take] the battle to the streets," Baloyi said.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Iavan Pijoos at News24

Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page