The Right to Know Campaign maintains that letters of redundancy should not have been issued by the SABC until the public broadcaster had engaged in a thorough consultative process.
Earlier today the Labour Court in Johannesburg said it could find no illegality in the manner in which the SABC has been conducting its retrenchment process.
The court dismissed trade union Bemawu’s urgent application for the SABC to retract redundancy letters it had already issued. The SABC has welcomed the judgment, saying it validates the processes they’ve followed so far. The public broadcaster plans to retrench about 400 permanent staff.
The Right to Know Campaign’s Michael Graaf: “Our position remains that those letters shouldn’t have been issued without a proper process of a national debate and a consultation, over what should really be the role of the SABC in SA as a democracy and in a digital society that we’re moving to, where broadcasting is going to be very different or can be very different from what it was in the past.”
Meanwhile, the Broadcasting, Electronic, Media and Allied Workers Union (Bemawu) says it might seek leave to appeal this morning’s judgment
The union also wanted the public broadcaster to engage in a fair process regarding its restructuring plans.
Source: SABC News
