SABC strike set for Monday

2009-07-03 14:21

Johannesburg - Workers at the SABC plan to strike next week in a dispute over wages, threatening a nationwide television blackout for the first time since 1976, a union leader said on Friday.

Three unions representing about three-quarters of SABC workers this week won the right to strike after the Labour Court dismissed SABC's application for an court order to stop the industrial action.

"We have given the SABC management a letter indicating that we'll be embarking on a strike from July 6," said Gallant Roberts, general secretary of the Communication Workers Union (CWU), which represents 30% of the SABC workforce.

The majority of South Africans get their news and entertainment coverage from SABC, which said in May it needed a R2bn government bailout.

Its board was dissolved last week by Communication Minister Siphiwe Nyanda after nine members resigned amid an investigation into financial mismanagement. Parliament has also passed a vote of no confidence in the board.

The unions have rejected SABC's offer of an 8.5% wage hike which they say breaches the promise of a 12.2% rise the corporation promised in a multi-term agreement.

CWU's Roberts said other unions - the Media Workers' Association of South Africa and the Broadcast, Electronic, Media and Allied Workers Union - have agreed to join in a strike.

"The strike will start with small pickets and go-slows before it becomes complete stay-away in about a week," said Roberts, adding the union would lobby for actors and presenters to join in the strike.

SABC spokesman Kaizer Kganyago said the public broadcaster expected the strike to begin on Monday.

"We cannot disclose the details of a contingency plan because people that are on strike will use that against us, but we assured the public that broadcasting would not be disrupted," said Kganyago.

The global financial crisis-hit SABC, once the mouthpiece of the apartheid government, is under constant criticism about its editorial independence.

- Reuters