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SABC’s board has decided to suspend staff reductions at the conflicting broadcaster to allow for further consultation.
After an emergency meeting on Thursday, the SABC board said the issuance of staff reduction notices would be suspended for seven days to allow for more consultation and explore more options to ensure the organization’s sustainability.
“The SABC is committed to meaningfully engaging with all of its stakeholders while continuing to make the corporation financially sustainable to fulfill its public mandate,” the public broadcaster said.
However, the unions have vowed to continue the strike unless the layoffs are completely ruled out. This could cause a blackout on SABC’s channels on Friday.
The bankrupt issuer, which has often required government bailouts to continue operating, plunged into a deeper crisis this week when management indicated they would go ahead with plans to cut jobs in an attempt to stabilize their desperate finances and avoid a crash. collapse of the organization. This sparked protests from staff who threatened to drop tools on Friday.
Communications Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, who has blocked previous downsizing attempts at the SABC that led to the resignation of some board members in 2018, entered the fray this week and asked the broadcaster consider other alternatives. The ANC is also opposed to the cuts, with Secretary General Ace Magashule telling the broadcaster in an interview Wednesday that party MPs were expected to line up and support the call to ensure job losses are avoided. . He said the board, “which has ANC employees,” should do the same.
The board appeared before parliament’s communications committee Wednesday night to discuss the proposed job cuts, which could affect 400 of the nearly 3,000 employees. It emerged that at least five non-executive directors on the 12-member board opposed the layoffs, which have been on the table since 2018.
The chairman of the board, Bongumusa Makhathini, said this week that job cuts are inevitable if the public broadcaster wants to avoid a collapse similar to that of the national airline SAA or the state arms manufacturer Denel. He said job cuts can only be avoided when the government agrees to give SABC at least R1bn a year, “but we know the government has no money. We have no choice. “
However, her deputy, Mamodupi Mohlala-Mulaudzi, told MPs that at least five members of the board, including her, opposed the cuts. He said several other options should be considered, including pay cuts across the board. SABC, which has a salary bill of more than R3bn a year for its 3,000 permanent employees, received a conditional bailout of R3.2bn from the government in late 2019, which it used to pay off most of its debt and invest in content. Part of the conditions included reducing the wage bill. Management has said it wants to reduce it by at least R700m.
“We don’t want to leave a legacy that we are the board that came and fired people,” Mohlala-Mulaudzi said.
But board member Michael Markovitz said the cuts were necessary to make the station sustainable. He also said that many investors were analyzing the SABC situation to assess the government’s commitment to stabilize the country’s finances.
“The SABC is technically insolvent. As directors we have a duty to address this, the cost base is not sustainable. It is tragic that people lose their jobs … but we are the ones who arrive at the scene of the car accident after years of embezzlement and are blamed for it … We don’t want to depend on bailouts, we want to be sustainable, “said Markovitz.
On Thursday, the Communications Workers Union called for the reduction notices to be withdrawn and for the SABC board to be dissolved. The union wants the station to be run. The Broadcasting, Electronics, Media and Allied Workers Union (Bemawu), which has 1,300 SABC employees among its ranks of members, indicated on Thursday that it would approach the labor court after the public broadcaster cut off consultations with the Union.
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