Unions not told about imminent retrenchments
The SABC has revived plans to retrench workers despite the uproar that flared up when the public broadcaster initially wanted to cut hundreds of jobs as part of a turnaround process.
Sunday World can exclusively reveal that the state-owned enterprise has not abandoned its plans to embark on a restructuring process that could see workers dumped to reduce the cash-strapped organisation’s salary bill by R700-million.
The plans are contained in a confidential document titled “Reimagine the SABC through a new operating model”, which Sunday World has seen.
The corporation’s leadership said in the presentation that dwindling advertising revenue was chief among the reasons to cut the headcount.
In January, the public broadcaster was forced to abandon its plans to invoke section 189 of the Labour Relations Act to retrench 981 permanent sta members and more than 1 200 freelancers.
The board had been at loggerheads with Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams over the plan to cut 33% of staff. But management was now seeking a mandate from the board to allow it to engage unions as part of a process to retrench workers.
“The reality is that the current operating model and organisational structure costs the corporation at least 40 cents in employee compensation for every R1 in projected revenue. We have determined that, in order to break even within the current fiscal, a R700-million reduction in employee compensation is necessary [before factoring in COVID-19-related adverse e ects],” the document states.
“The proposed target operating model will give birth to a redesigned SABC that is modern, agile and future focused. The proposed organisational structure will form the basis on which the required R700-million reduction in employee compensation can be achieved.”
The organisation argued that the current SABC operating model was not defined and had major challenges, including the absence of an overarching group strategy and planning function cascading to divisional plans.
The account executives and sales sta were working in silos, among other problems. In terms of the plan, the retrenchment of workers needed to happen even before the ongoing skills audit is completed.
In October last year, government approved a R3,2bn bailout for the SABC. Broadcasting, Electronic, Media & Allied Workers Union president Hannes du Buisson said his union was studying the presentation, adding that they were not informed of plans to retrench workers in the recent two urgent meetings with the SABC.
“We were not told there will be retrenchments. We are, however, concerned about the content of the SABC presentation, which we are busy studying, that seems to suggest there could be sta cuts,” he said.
“No organisation can appoint executives and general managers on the one hand, but get rid of sta on the other hand.”
Cosatu affliate Communications Workers Union general secretary Aubrey Tshabalala said the union would fight against job cuts, adding that they were not aware of the organisation’s proposal to cut jobs.
“It will be a very lazy approach. Our approach seeks to say we must look at the SABC broadly into the future. But of course, we are not going to agree [to retrenchments] because we have not even touched issues of the skills audit process,” said Tshabalala.
SABC acting spokesperson Mmoni Seapolelo confirmed that the organisation has introduced a new “target operating model” in response to National Treasury’s bailout conditions, business requirements and market conditions.
Seapolelo said the model had been approved by the board.
“The SABC will consult the relevant stakeholders in terms of the Labour Relations Act as and when the corporation contemplates retrenchments,” she said.
“The target operating model will be used as the foundation to develop optimal, fit-for-purpose organisational structures for various operations of the corporation. Therefore, this strategic renewal initiative is aimed at overhauling the SABC to ensure that it is financially sustainable, self-sufficient and appropriately capacitated to execute its mandate effectively,” Seapolelo added.
