SABC ‘jumping the gun’ on planned retrenchments: CWU

The Communication Workers Union’s (CWU) General Secretary Aubrey Tshabalala says the SABC is jumping the gun with its planned retrenchments.

The public broadcaster is expected to appear before the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) on Thursday to begin the facilitation process.

The public broadcaster intends retrenching around 600 permanent workers and terminating the contracts of 1200 freelancers.

In the video below, CWU caught completely off-guard by SABC retrenchments:

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Tshabalala who will be representing CWU members at the CCMA says their role will be to find possible ways to avoid retrenchments or at the very least, minimise the impact.

“Our view is that the SABC has failed to engage us in good faith. SABC has actually not concluded our agreement when we stopped retrenchments last time when we spoke about the turnaround strategy. We think the SABC is jumping the gun, their plan is a mess because they just talk numbers. They don’t realise that in those numbers there are warm bodies with skills that will be required when we move to the digitisation of the SABC. The problems at SABC is historical, at the centre is corruption.”

In the video below, SABC unions are concerned about planned retrenchments: 

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Source: SABC News (sabcnews.com)