Joburg Targets Khanya College in Controversial Eviction Plan - Karibu

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Dear Friends, Comrades and Fellow Citizens

PETITION

This Petition is endorsed by a number of organisations listed below.

City of Joburg plans Eviction of Khanya College from Workers Museum West Cottage

After a partnership of 30 years, the City of Joburg’s (CoJ) Directorate of Arts, Culture and Heritage plans to evict Khanya College from the Workers Museum West Cottage (WMC) to house administrative staff. The Khanya College Board received the letter (February 2025) to vacate the WMC by end of March 2025; and resolved to defend this important public space.

The Cottages form part of the WM heritage site, and the CoJ is already using the East Cottage as administrative offices in contravention of the purpose of this important site. This planned eviction will effectively limit youth and communities’ access and use of the Workers Museum, the Newtown Cultural Precinct and the City. This is a hostile anti-working class act by an uncaring city, which watches the decay and disintegration of the country’s economic heartland without any accountability. Both, President Ramaphosa and Premier Lesufi officially acknowledged the city’s decay, but the city continues with its mismanagement. Politicians’ words are cheap – the defence of public spaces depends on each one of us, acting collectively.

Why the planned eviction?

The ‘reason’ given for the CoJ’s planned eviction of Khanya College and the working class from this public space is the fire that took place in the Civic Centre in September 2023 which displaced their employees and is still not repaired. This fire took place nearly 2 years ago!

In addition, as early as 2019 the CoJ was given due notice that the electrical transformers in the building needed maintenance. The CoJ’s neglect resulted in the fire. Instead of taking responsibility and accountability for its actions, the CoJ is choosing to make historically disadvantaged youth, communities and the public pay for their mismanagement.

The planned eviction of Khanya College is shortsighted and is just another example of the CoJ’s continued mismanagement of the inner-city.

Reports indicate at least one hundred (100) dilapidated city-owned buildings require repairs.
The Commission of Inquiry into the fire that resulted in 76 people’s deaths in 80 Albert Street in August 2023, the apartheid Pass Record Office, found the CoJ negligent and responsible for the fire. The city’s response was to blame NGOs and foreign nationals. This building was vacant since 2017, amidst calls for it to be a heritage site.
The City Library was closed for 4 years before public protests contributed to its reopening.
Lilian Ngoyi Street has been closed for two years due to the city failing to repair the site, amidst rumours of corruption and mismanagement.
This is besides the ongoing potholes and lack of services in the decaying inner city where the poor live and work.

Yet when the city has the chance to protect public spaces used by its citizens it chooses to punish them further. This uncaring and unaccountable approach can no longer be tolerated.

Collective Mandate: Defend public spaces WM & C

On Saturday, 19 July 2025, 18 civil society organisations, decided that the City of Joburg and the Directorate of Heritage, Arts and Culture has no commitment to the city’s working class history and its cultural development; and in particular, the right of working people to access art, culture, heritage and public spaces.

The organisations resolved:

the need to defend and maintain the Workers Museum and both, East and West Cottages, as a public space and heritage site for the working class and the public;
that Khanya College be the guardian of this space for the working class;
that the CoJ retains its responsibility for overall structural and related maintenance.
to set up a Working Group to mobilise fraternal organisations and civil society to support the petition and the campaign; and
that organisations and civil society together with Khanya College, hand over constituencies’ responses, as per agreement with the CoJ, in September.

Sign the Petition to Support this Struggle and the Demands on the City of Johannesburg:

the Workers Museum and both, East and West Cottages are used as a public space and heritage site for the working class and the public;
that Khanya College be the guardian of this space for the working class;
that the CoJ retains its responsibility for overall structural and related maintenance.
The CoJ enters into an agreement with Khanya College to give effect to these demands.

If you require additional information, continue reading and you can sign below.

BACKGROUND TO THE EVICTION

Remember: Public Struggle for the Workers Museum & Cottages

In early 2000s a bitter public struggle for the Workers Museum and Cottages (WMC) took place when the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA), amongst others, planned to demolish the WM and build a hotel, shopping centre and coffee shops.

Then, Khanya College together with South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU), the Anti-Privatisation Forum and civil society engaged in a protracted struggle that included petitions to the National Heritage Council and a public march to the Joburg Property Company. Eventually the Council ruled that the hotel be built elsewhere.

This was a victory for working class heritage in South Africa. Khanya College voluntarily relocated from the Cottages, prioritising it for culture and heritage; and the Workers Library merged with Khanya College. Ever since, the WMC have been integral to the college’s education, art and cultural work in the City.

Partnership with the City of Joburg (CoJ)

After the formation of the WMC, Khanya College provided its infrastructure (telephone, fax, security and other facilities to the CoJ (staff at the WM), cleaning, maintenance, heating and daily supplies – effectively subsidising the CoJ.

In 2003, the anti-War Coalition opposed the US war on Iraq, often met at the WM.
Khanya College continued to provide regular access and education and cultural programmes to working class communities, children, youth, women and workers there. This included:
- documenting all the hostels in the CoJ before they were demolished;
- the Closed Construction Exhibition on migrant labour held jointly with the CoJ in 2006.
- supporting a network of community museums in the country to meet;
- the International Conference on Migrant Labour at the WM in 2007;
- Khanya College’s annual Winter Schools for activists from Southern Africa have taken place at the WM since 1999 and the 25th celebration of the Winter School took place in 2024 at WM&C.

Guardian of the WM&C

The CoJ’s three-year user agreement with Khanya College, signed in February 2021, was in recognition of the College’s consistent educational and cultural work in the city since the 1990s.

The Cottages in close proximity to the Museum have helped deepen Khanya College’s outreach and ongoing work with communities and youth. The main offices of Khanya College are based in the Fashion District, close to the Gauteng High Court, a derelict, crime ridden area with no other cultural spaces for tenants, school youth and citizens. The WM&C is more easily accessible to all working people without any bureaucratic control, power and user fees.

When the user agreement expired in February 2024; Khanya College had a reasonable expectation, and by conduct, that the COJ would extend the agreement. Khanya College has more than fulfilled its responsibilities of the user agreement, bringing communities, youth, children, women and the public to enjoy education, art, culture, the Workers Museum’s history, the Newtown Cultural Precinct and the City. Khanya College has maintained and continues to provide 24-hour security to the Cottages and the WMC complex, thus subsidizing the COJ, at the expense of ourselves and our solidarity partners.

Evidently, the City does not value Joburg’s working class history and culture; and developing its youth and communities. Neither is the CoJ mindful of support for self-organised and consistent community-based programmes like Khanya College’s which make a difference in people’s lives.

We call on all fraternal organisations and the public to support the struggle of working people to the right to public spaces. Sign this petition to immediately halt the eviction of Khanya College from the WM Cottages now, and in the future; and for the Cottages to be retained for culture and heritage.

SIGN THE PETITION – KHANYA COLLEGE