Johannesburg - There is a deliberate strategy by the SABC to exclude the Media Workers' Association of SA (Mwasa) from policy deliberations, the union said on Tuesday.
“The SABC has no option but to include Mwasa in this process. It is a matter of rights,” the union's general secretary Tuwani Gumani said.
“They cannot pretend that we don't exist.”
He said in a letter to SABC employee relations general manager Mandiwe Nkosi on Monday that the union was inadvertently notified of some “plenary consultation processes” under way regarding company policy reviews.
“Further exclusion of Mwasa from these and similar engagements will be challenged legally,” Gumani said to Nkosi.
SABC spokesman Kaizer Kganyago said the broadcaster would comment on the matter “in due course”.
Mwasa lost bargaining rights at the SABC in 2011 because its members did not constitute 20 percent or more of employees at the broadcaster.
Gumani said there were several disputes on the matter and it subsequently went to the Labour Court.
The court ruled that the matter was not urgent, and the dispute was taken to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation, and Arbitration (CCMA).
“The CCMA issued a certificate of non-resolution on Thursday,” Gumani said.
“The matter will now go to the Labour Court if the SABC does not agree to arbitration,” he said.
Sapa