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BL Premium reports that after resolving last week to extend consultations by seven days, the board of the SA Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) said on Tuesday it had agreed to halt the retrenchment process until the end of December to allow for further consultations.
It added, however, that that did not mean retrenchments were off the table, a stance likely to lead to more clashes with unions. The board said executives and workers’ representatives would work on further mediated sessions with an independent labour expert to explore alternative options to minimising the effect of retrenchments. On Monday, the board met communications minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams and her counterpart in the employment and labour department, Thulas Nxesi, who both suggested that other alternatives should be considered, and job cuts should be the last resort. With its wobbly finances worsened by the Covid-19 crisis and the subsequent drop in advertising revenue, further delays in implementing the cost-cutting measures could potentially push the public broadcaster to the brink of collapse, a situation that could only be averted by further government funding. But the government’s finances are stretched and the state has indicated its intention to wean parastatals off the fiscus and make them more commercially viable.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Bekezela Phakathi at BusinessLive (paywall access only)
- Read too, SABC suspends retrenchments until the end of December, at TimesLIVE
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page