The Communication Workers Union (CWU) has served the SABC with a notice to resume with their strike action as the public broadcaster forges ahead with retrenchments.
The union had halted protests in 2020 after the SABC extended its consultation process by 30 days until the end of December.
Earlier this week, the public broadcaster continued to issue redundancy and surplus letters to staff.
The SABC says it has reduced the number of employees who will lose their jobs from 600 to just over 300. It says it has to reduce the wage bill to make the organisation financially sustainable.
CWU General-Secretary Aubrey Tshabalala says they will lead a motorcade to the Union Buildings on Wednesday in protest.
“We call upon all workers of SABC including non-unionised members and freelancers to join the strike. We will start on Wednesday. The kick-off will be with a motorcade in Gauteng that will be leaving Auckland Park marching ahead to the Union Buildings to deliver a memorandum to the President. We chose the method of motorcade considering COVID-19 and the regulations. We believe that our action will make a significant impact. In all the provinces, there will be different activities.”
BEMAWU to also strike
Trade union BEMAWU says its members will take to the streets over the ongoing retrenchment process at the SABC, if the public broadcaster does not conduct the process fairly.
BEMAWU to join CWU in a strike action against SABC retrenchments:
BEMAWU president Hannes du Buisson said they are concerned about what is happening at the SABC.
“We got an opinion from members at this point in time and the majority of people who responded; members who’ve responded indicated that they want to proceed or participate in the strike. That is the only legal and constitutional way in which employees can fend off retrenchments. It is in terms of the law it is protected and that is what they are entitled to do. We not just going to jump into a strike right away, we are going to write another letter to the SABC board where we are requesting an audience with them as we have done previously so that we can see if it’s not possible to avert a strike at the SABC.”
