Press Statement dated 20 August 2018
The trade union Solidarity today announced that it will represent its member, Pieter van den Berg on 22 August 2018 at the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria after he was falsely accused by a colleague of racism, and consequently his contract was unreasonably and unilaterally annulled by the SABC.
The trade union argues that this led to a loss of income for Van den Berg of approximately R1 million. However, this is not the first time that Solidarity represents former SABC employees after they were unilaterally dismissed by the national broadcaster.
According to Anton van der Bijl, head of Solidarity’s Labour Law division, Van den Berg was accused of racism by a technical controller after the broadcast of a Superrugby match on 7 May 2016 because Van der Berg asked the controller – who was at the time of the incident under the influence of alcohol, late for his broadcast time and disobeyed the rules of the stadium – to do his job correctly. “This accusation gave the national broadcaster enough reason to tear up Mr. Van den Berg’s contract without him being granted the chance to provide his side of the story. Despite the fact that Mr. Van den Berg passed two polygraph tests that confirmed his story of the events that night, the SABC stuck to their guns and consequently Mr. Van den Berg lost his income,” explained Van der Bijl.
According to Van der Bijl, Van den Berg is now suing the national broadcaster for a loss of income. “Mr. Van den Berg still had approximately a year left to serve on his contract, and thus suffered a tremendous loss,” said Van der Bijl.
“Solidarity regards this matter as very important. It is a frightful day when you lose your income based on false accusations, despite polygraph tests and the true facts. Solidarity will thus fight tooth and nail on behalf of Mr. Van den Berg to get him reappointed in his job as Executive Director of RSG Sport,” said Van der Bijl.
Members of the media are hereby invited to attend court proceedings.
Where: North Gauteng High Court, c.o. Paul Kruger & Madiba Str., Pretoria
When: 22 August 2018
Time: 09:30
Issued by Solidarity