Union wants SABC board disbanded, CEO and COO dismissed

The Communications Workers Union (CWU) has demanded that the chair of the SABC board, Bongumusa Makhathini, along with the entire board, be dismissed “with immediate effect”.

Reading out the union’s memorandum of demands at Friday’s picket at the SABC, Auckland Park, CWU general secretary Aubrey Tshabalala said Makhathini and the board had failed to turn around the public broadcaster and to hold its executive to account.

The CWU further called on the Minister of Communications, Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, to immediately appoint an administrator at the SABC who would firstly, fire the public broadcaster’s group CEO Madoda Mxakwe and secondly, axe the COO, Ian Plaatjes.

“It must be their last time here, we are not joking,” Tshabalala said.

The union is calling on the SABC to be completely closed down until their demands are met.

Tshabalala said the union was demanding that management immediately withdraw the dismissal letters issued to SABC staffers this week and that the “senseless retrenchments” should be abandoned and the new structure be scrapped.

ALSO READ: ANC says suspension of retrenchment process at SABC must be indefinite

Tshabalala said the new structure at the SABC proposed that commercial radio stations such as Metro FM, 5FM and Good Hope should no longer broadcast news.

Tshabalala said indigenous languages such as Tshivenda, Xitsonga, SiNdebele and SiSwati were “under attack” because the SABC had said they were not financially and commercially viable and so the current affairs shows on television which broadcast in these languages would be done away with.

“We have to defend our indigenous languages,” Tshabalala added.

The CWU also called for a proper skills audit at the SABC because many highly skilled employees were underpaid while under-qualified staff were paid generously, Tshabalala said.

After receiving and signing the memoranda of demands from the CWU and the ANC Youth League, Mxakwe said these would be passed on to the board on Friday and that a response would be expected early next week.

Leaders of the strike action called on all SABC workers working over the weekend and those working from home to down tools and that all strikers should reconvene at Auckland Park on Monday.

ALSO READ: Bemawu demands SABC withdraw retrenchment letters

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.