30 June 2020

THE GROUP EXECUTIVE HUMAN RESOURCES

SOUTH AFRICAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION (SOC)
c/o HENLEY & ARTILLERY ROAD
AUCKLAND PARK
JOHANNESBURG

PER EMAIL : MosiaM02@sabc.co.za

Dear Dr. Mosia,

NON-COMPLIANCE WITH S189

We have noted with concern the flagrant breach of S189 of the

Labour Relations Act in respect of a number of issues. We list some
hereunder:

1. CONSULTATION

a. Whereas the Act is explicit and prescriptive as to how

an employer must consult, the SABC has opted to
ignore the Act in this respect.
 b. In terms of S189, where employees belong to a trade
union, the employer MUST consult with that trade
union, and not with employees directly.

c. The SABC has decided to held consultative meetings

with staff directly, bypassing the trade unions, and
the law.

d. The common meaning of consultation is, according to

the Cambridge Dictionary “a meeting to discuss
something or to get advise.”

e. In terms of the LRA, consultation is a joint consensus

seeking exercise.

f. This is exactly what the SABC is currently doing.

g. The SABC’s letter to staff, in paragraphs 63 and 64

specifically invited each and every staff member to
engage with the SABC on an individual level in
consultation.

h. It had scheduled consultative meetings with staff,

requesting input (on very short and unreasonable
deadlines) from staff to consider those inputs with
the unlawful and misplaced intention to seek
consensus.

i. This is clearly in breach of the law.

2. We seek an immediate undertaking that this illegal

consultation will cease, failing we reserve our rights in terms
of the LRA, which may include an urgent interdict.
3. ALTERNATIVES TO DISMISSAL

a. The SABC did not, as required by Section 189(3)(b)

provided the alternatives to dismissal it considered
and the reasons for rejecting each of those
alternatives.

b. This renders the notice defective.

c. The SABC has again put the proverbial cart before

the horses as will become clear hereunder.

d. The SABC should have embarked on a process prior

to issuing a Section 189 notice wherein it was
supposed to involved it’s employees (who have been
employed as broadcasters and media practitioners,
some for many years) on a strategy and operational
plan to reposition and turnaround the SABC.

e. It is during that process the SABC was supposed to

seek proposals, and in its S189 notice states why it
rejected those proposals.

f. This never happened.

g. The SABC cannot, after serving notice, now substitute

that process with an individual consultation process.

h. Instead of complying with the requirements of

S189(3)(b) by informing the consulting party of the
alternatives to dismissal which was considered, and
 why it was rejected, the SABC in its notice stated
what it did not consider.

i. The law certainly requires the SABC to not make

general statements like, it’s view to retain the
organisation in its current form and design is not a
“reasonable and/or viable alternative” but to be
specific in its notice as to the alternatives to
dismissal.

j. However, it is clear the SABC did not consider any

alternatives, as it stated in its notice “The preliminary
view of the SABC is that there simply does not
appear to be alternatives available.”

k. We submit simply because the SABC never asked its

employees whether they have any alternatives.

l. Most concerning however - by not inviting

alternatives - and by not investigating and
considering alternatives, it is clear the SABC has
made up its mind and is not interested in exploring
alternatives, but to arbitrarily cut its headcount by
600 employees.

m. No reasons (alternatives and why it was rejected) as

to how possibly to retain those employees, appear in
the notice.

n. We submit simply because it was not considered.

o. The law is prescriptive in respect of the consideration

of alternatives. It does not state “alternatives, if any...”
 in section 189(3)(b). On proper reading of this
section, an employer is obliged to consider
alternatives before proposing dismissals.

4. SELECTION CRITERIA

a. We are not in agreement with the selection criteria

proposed, in particular in light of not considering
alternatives to dismissal, and the uncompleted skills
audit.

b. Furthermore, by filling vacant posts, regardless

whether it was so-called critical positions or not, has
deprived a number of employees of the opportunity
to be moved or bumped to those positions in the
event they would become redundant.

c. Not only was it irresponsible of the SABC to do so,

but did it send a clear message by the current
management that employees are not regarded as
important. If the SABC valued its employees, it would
have waited for the skills audit to be completed and
identify employees with skills to be redeployed in
terms of a fair process to those positions.

d. Instead, without having critical information about the

skills of its employees, the SABC proceeded to
appoint people from outside the organization,
increasing its employee cost even further.

e. Competent employees acted in those positions. We

are not aware of any poor work performance
 processes or incompetency processes currently in
progress, or for the past two years at least. If
employees were so incompetent, why were they not
managed in terms of the law?

f. It was therefore not necessary to fill those positions

at a time the SABC clearly knew it was going ahead
with S189.

5. SKILLS AUDIT

a. Further to our letter in respect of the shocking

revelation re the skills audit survey, and its
authenticity it follows that there is zero compliance
with the instruction from the shareholder et al to
conduct a proper skills audit at the SABC.

b. The SABC is on record that the Skills Audit has not

been completed.

c. In fact, at the last presentation weeks ago more than

half of the SABC did not complete the skills audit,
due to mainly the lockdown and access to facilities to
complete the audit.

d. Furthermore, we have pointed out the irrelevant

questions, the complexity of the questions and the
wrong templates being sent to employees at some
point in time.

e. The Skills audit was not done properly and its results
cannot be trusted. Employees were scored on
questions not relevant to their jobs and
 responsibilities. We warned the SABC about this, but
our warnings and concerns were ignored. We have a
number of letters from employees on different levels
of the organization complaining about this.

f. With a proper Skills Audit in place properly skilled or

closely skilled employees with the necessary training
can be bumped or redeployed to vacant or other
positions to avoid being dismissed. Without this
information the SABC cannot move on this in a fair
and objective manner.

g. We now have confirmation from the consultant tasked

with the Skills Audit that at least in every survey that
contained irrelevant questions, the results will be
inaccurate and cannot be trusted.

6. The SABC is on record that it implemented parts of the

Turnaround Strategy that will ultimately lead to job losses at
the SABC. This is illegal and all such changes must be
reversed with immediate effect.

7. Furthermore, it has come to our attention that the SABC has

unlawfully and irregularly supplied personal information to a
third party, who has named itself the non-unionsed
committee, about the trade union membership status of
employees of the SABC without the data subject’s
(employee’s) consent, in breach of Section 30 of Act 4 of
2013, The Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013,
alternatively that that committee has gained access to same
which information was under control of the SABC.
8. We reserve the rights of our members who received an email
from this committee, in breach of their employment and other
rights.

9. We urge the SABC to:

a. Undo the recent appointments;

b. Cease to consult with individual employees, and

employees will be advised to not enter into such
consultations with the SABC,

c. Undo any and all implementation of the Turnaround

Strategy and the new Corporate Plan, and the
implementation of any new structures, whether it
affects the headcount or not,

d. Withdraw the S189 notice in line with the instruction

of the Portfolio Committee, as it was issued
prematurely and complete the processes as directed
by Parliament, which may include get proposals from
staff as to how to turn around the SABC,

e. Redo the Skills Audit in a proper and scientific

manner with relevance to employee’s jobs and
functions, in a simple, understandable manner and
job specific.

f. Heed the instruction by Parliament to cease the

retrenchment process. For ease of reference, we
include some extract from the meeting between SABC
and the Portfolio Committee hereunder:
 “So I just thought that it’s important just lift up those points so
that the meeting leaves with an understanding that from where we
are its [the retrenchment letter is] prematurely. Implement page
19, go to all those consultation processes, look at the up-skilling,
re-skilling of people, re-deployments, as activities are saying.

So that when you come back to us and say there are people who
are not deployable, you’ve tried to do everything and this is
probably the pool you have.

You, yourselves have said it that at some point you estimated it to

be around 900. It’s now estimated at 600. You can’t give us which
areas are affected at this point in time because that work is not
complete and therefore, you’d understand the last thing with a
great deal of respect, that this was a bit prematurely. Engage the
process. Come back to the Committee.”

g. The process referred to here is not the S189 process,

but the Skills Audit process, where the SABC has been
instructed to first look at upskilling, reskilling and
redeployment of staff, and only thereafter report back to
the Portfolio Committee with the number of staff that
cannot be accommodated.

h. It is clear the Committee has found that the S189

process has been started prematurely, and that the SABC
must first complete the outstanding issues (marked in
red) on page 19 of its presentation before proceeding
with a S189.

10. Such undertakings, as per paragraph 7 above, be confirmed

by no later than 16:00 on 1 July 2020.
 11. Should we not get these undertakings from the SABC at the
set deadline, we will accept the SABC has no intention to
comply with same, in which event we will do what is
necessary to protect the rights of our members.

Sincerely,

Digitally signed
BEMAWU by BEMAWU
Headoffice
Headoffice Date: 2020.06.30
18:56:31 +02'00'
____________________
Per: Hannes du Buisson
ORGANISED LABOUR
DULY MANDATED AND DIGITALLY SIGNED