Unions reject SABC wage offer

SABC workers on Monday rejected the latest wage offer made to them by the broadcaster, the Media Workers’ Association of South Africa said. 

“The offer was rejected today and preparations for the march tomorrow [Tuesday] have been completed,” Mwasa general secretary Ernest Dlamini said.

He said his union, as well as the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) and the Broadcast, Electronic, Media and Allied Workers’ Union (Bemawu), met with their members on Monday to receive a mandate from them.

Dlamini said the SABC’s latest offer included an increase of between 9,25% to 10,25%, according to different salary scales.

However, he said: “They [SABC workers] want their 12,2%.”

Previously Mwasa and CWU went to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration when the SABC revised a 12,2% pay offer it was supposed to have implemented in April, to 8,5%.

Dlamini said the workers would march at noon on Tuesday from the Sentech tower in Auckland Park to hand a memorandum to SABC management.

“It’s the last opportunity we are giving management to seriously look at this issue.”

A deadline for when a full-blown strike would take place would then be given, he said.

The unions had been holding lunchtime pickets since last week.

SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago said the broadcaster was still waiting for a formal written response to their latest offer.

“We have given an offer in writing and we are expecting it [a response] to be written.”

Kganyago said even if a strike took place it would not be the end of negotiations.

“It is not the end. We will then kick in with the contingency plan and we will still engage with each other until a solution is found.”

Also on Monday acting President Kgalema Motlanthe appointed the SABC’s interim board for a period of six months.

The new board is comprised of chairperson Irene Charnley, Philip Frederick Mtimkulu (deputy chairperson), Libby Lloyd, Leslie Kgopotso Sedibe, Suzanne Vos, Gab Mampone, Robin Nicholson, and Charlotte Mampane.

“The presidency expresses its confidence in the capabilities of the new interim board members and in the interim board as a collective,” it said in a statement.

Advertisements for a permanent 12-member board will be published within the next two weeks.

The National Assembly’s communications committee will start interviewing applicants shortly thereafter.

The public broadcaster had been dogged by controversy over several months over what unions claim was the misuse of millions of rand. - Sapa