Mwasa takes SABC to court for alleged failure by the public broadcaster to do a salary review of sales representatives in over a decade.

The Media Workers Association of South Africa (Mwasa) has taken the SABC to court to force the South African public broadcaster to implement a court order the SABC has ignored and which would see an increase in the commission paid to SABC sales representatives.

The SABC is supposed to review the public broadcaster's sales commission scheme every two years according to its own policy but has failed to do this salary review for over a decade.

The trade union has now filed court papers with the Labour Court in Johannesburg citing that the SABC's acting CEO Anton Heunis is in contempt of court due to the SABC's failure to act on, and comply with the order handed down in May 2013 by the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA).

REACTION OVER FIRED GENERATION CAST: 'Obscene abuse' of power and a 'devastating impact on SABC viewers' says MWASA.

The Media Workers Association of South Africa (MWASA) calls the wholesale firing of the Generations cast on SABC1 today an "obscene abuse" of corporate power and says that it will have a "devastating adverse impact on viewers" - urging the Generations actors, the SABC and MMSV Productions to set aside the shocking massive firing of the cast and to talk it out around the negotiating table.

MWASA says that the mass dismissal of the actors on the SABC's most watched TV show which it calls an "irrational decision" is creating "collateral damage on both sides" and will be extremely negative for the millions of viewers watching the primetime SABC1 soap in South Africa and in other countries.

MWASA says South Africa's creative workers "generate billions of rand for a super-exploitative industry that spits everybody out as soon as the spotlight dims".

"This history of our exploitative creative sector is littered with casualties and victims of the slave-and-master contract system that creates selfish millionaires on one hand and paupers and beggars on the other".

"It seems the preferred approach of the current leadership of the SABC and MMSV Productions is that getting rid of workers amounts to a sustainable solution to the endemic problems regarding contractual relations between the SABC, production companies and workers," says MWASA.

"It is obscene abuse of corporate power and managerial privilege. Contracts must remain negotiable within reason and in pursuit of the common good".

MWASA says "we fully support the struggle for improved working conditions, for competitive remuneration, for the consideration of fair compensation regarding royalties, rebroadcasts, sales and syndication".

"The actors, the SABC and MMSV Productions should urgently consider setting aside the Generations actors' dismissal and work on returning to the negotiating table. A fascilitated process would yield better results".

'Perpetual dark cloud of depravity, ineptitude, self-interest and corruption looms large over the SABC," says trade union Mwasa.

"A perpetual dark cloud of depravity, ineptitude, self-interest and corruption looms large over the SABC," says the trade union Media Workers Association of South Africa (Mwasa) in a strongly worded statement, calling for the beleaguered South African public broadcaster to be changed into a "Chapter 9" institution.

Within the South African context - unlike the more familiar American expression of "Chapter 9", it doesn't denote bankrupty, but rather an institution functioning independently from any government interference.

Mwasa says "tortured and abused employees have kept the SABC on air" and that once again "calls are made to long-suffering employees to put all hands on deck and to bouy or sustain another trampoline for the shenanigans at decision-making levels far removed from their daily chores."

Mwasa says the SABC's new interim board, the embattled SABC's second interim board in four years, "will achieve less than nothing" if staff are not incorporated "in all aspects of finding sustainable strategy solutions to the pervasive challenges crippling the SABC."

Mwasa says "there is immense boadcasting experience wealth, talent and skill in and around the SABC which must be recognised and generously tapped into".

Mwasa says the SABC has "hobbled along for over a decade without effective oversight structures" and that the trade union fears that the SABC might end up being placed under administration.