The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is expected to respond to worker unions on Thursday on whether it will abandon its Section 189 process.
The public broadcaster had a Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) facilitation meeting on Wednesday where unions Broadcasting, Electronic, Media and Allied Workers’ Union (Bemawu) and Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) demanded that the retrenchment process be abandoned or started from scratch.
This follows staff meetings where it appeared that there was a new company organogram that the SABC had drawn without consulting staff.
The SABC recently announced plans to retrench 600 permanent staff members and terminate 1 200 freelance contracts.
CWU’s Aubrey Tshabalala says they have given the SABC until Thursday morning to chart the way forward.
“Section 189 under auspices CCMA was basically made a rubber stamp process, because we were gonna talk about things that they have already implemented. In June, they already put people in positions that never existed at the SABC before to confirm that those structures exist. So, one of our demands is that they must reverse those things and of course, when we start afresh it must be on a clean slate.”
