Strike
action could come soon to the South African Broadcasting Corporation, as staffers become no-shows after the
new permanent SABC board refused a 10% salary hike for SABC workers at the
cash-strapped South African public broadcaster awaiting another R3 billion
government bailout.
The
Auditor-General called the SABC “commercially insolvent”, with Africa's largest
public broadcaster posted yet another annual loss of R977 million at the end of
September.
Meanwhile the SABC is awaiting yet another government bailout since
its last one in 2009 of R1.4 billion.
The SABC that
is once again hovering on the brink of financial collapse without a
cash-injection, asked the treasury for R3 billion that will likely again be in
the form of a government-guaranteed bank loan, in order to remain afloat,
although Treasury has not given any indication yet whether it will approve
another bailout.
The
Broadcasting, Electronic, Media & Allied Workers Union (Bemawu) and the
Communication Workers Union (CWU) who demand a 10% salary increase and a
guarantee of the payment of a 13th bonus cheque payment in December, say SABC
staffers will be ready to down tools as part of a protected strike that could
happen from as early as Sunday.
The SABC has
been plagued by bad management, bad managerial decisions and upheaval at top
executive and board level, with the government's Special Investigative Unit
(SIU) currently conducting a wide-ranging probe into corruption, mismanagement
and several dodgy contracts at the public broadcaster stretching back several years.
Unions say
staffers "have been subjected to threats and fear, unilateral restructurings,
change of work practices and shift roster, appointments without advertising
positions and a zero-percentage increase".
By Friday
morning the SABC has not yet been served with a notice from staff about a
strike.
The Mwasa
union is against a strike and says "it is amply obvious that the SABC is in a
bad state financially, operationally, in terms of consumer and business
confidence", saying that "the call for a strike is curious under these
circumstances noting in particular the growing incapacity of the national purse
to fund expenditure".
"There is no
automatic right to a salary increment," says Mwasa. "A demand for a salary
increment must not be entertained simply because it is habit to demand and
receive."
"A demand
must be justified, justifiable, affordable on a proven sustainability basis
going forward. SABC employees have repeatedly received above inflation
increases primarily because the reckless leadership of recent had used 'organised labour' on a rent-a-crowd-basis and dispensed with crumbs of
patronage which were received without question."
