The Media Workers Association of South Africa (MWASA) held a picket outside the Johannesburg headquarters of public broadcaster SABC on Wednesday, 19 September to protest the on-going crisis at the SABC.
MWASA handed over the following Memorandum of Demands to the SABC’s senior management at 13h00:
- We demand an SABC that WORKS – with visionary and accountable leadership at all levels including the presidency, the ministry, the parliamentary portfolio committee on communications, ICASA, the SABC board and group executive.
- We demand n SABC that is fully funded by the state to ensure that its mandate is not compromised in favour of commercial interests.
- We demand that the perpetually dysfunctional SABC board must resign or be removed and replaced with individuals committed to an SABC that works. The lack of stability within this board has led to the loss of focus and credibility.
- We demand the immediate filling of critical positions at group executive with appropriately qualified, committed and passionate broadcasters.
- We demand an end to selective suspensions of executives for petty reasons. It is unacceptable that the SABC spends large sums of monies on endless litigations and paying staff to sit at home for months on end.
- We demand confirmation of the reinstatement with immediate effect of MWASA’s organisational rights as agreed with the CEO on 29th August 2012. The termination of our Collective Agreement 13-months ago had nothing to do with numbers but was as a result of MWASA demanding a more appropriate turnaround strategy and corporate plan for the SABC. Sadly, we have been vindicated and the purported turnaround strategy has dismally failed.
- We demand a new turnaround strategy that focuses the SABC on its core functions and mandate and outlines a sustainable future for the SABC, one that supports a viable creative industry and seeks synergies with the community media sector to ensure that all services of the SABC are accessible to all citizens.
- We demand equal treatment of all staff, respect for the right to freedom of expression and association as well an end to favouritism for special preferred unions. The SABC must reimburse subscription dues illegally remitted to other unions from which our members have long resigned.
- We demand the reinstatement of our members excluded from the SABC through abuse of provisions of the corporation’s personnel regulations to settle scores. Many committed and skilled South Africans have been purged from the SABC with the result that broadcasting skill is lost to the industry.
- We demand a clear staff development programme including an independent skills audit to form the basis for remedial and developmental measures including inclusive processes of consultation.
- We demand that discipline must apply equally across all management levels of the SABC and that managers who abuse delegated authority must be disciplined accordingly. There must be consequence for abuse of staff.
- We demand that the Human Capital Services Division and Employee Relations Department be shut down for lack of professionalism and lack of moral leadership. The two management areas HCS and ER have failed to protect the employees of the SABC from seamless attacks by maligned managers and have themselves been at the forefront of committing atrocities against staff. They have failed to carry out their core functions including addressing Apartheid-era disparities and have presided over creation of new strong human-rights culture.
MWASA expects a detailed response to these submissions in 14-calendar days.
