SABC heads to court in a bid to strike unlawful appointments off its payroll

The SABC is moving swiftly in actioning its turnaround strategy. The public broadcaster has indicated that it will be filing an application at the Labour Court in Johannesburg to have employees who have been appointed irregularly stricken off the payroll.

How many irregular appointments were made by SABC?

In a statement, the SABC revealed that in the first sweep of its employment records, it has identified 27 employees it believes were appointed irregularly.

The broadcaster revealed that these appointments were effected without following the proper SABC policies. According to the broadcaster’s head of legal services, Advocate Ntuthuzelo Vanara, employees who are deemed to have been appointed irregularly have been served with notices of the impending court bid.

What will the lay-ff process entail?

The objective, according to Vanara, is to allow the courts to decide on the validity of these appointments, and should it be determined that they were unlawful and invalid, the workers will be asked to vacate their positions with immediate effect.

“The reason we went to court is precisely not to take the law into our own hands. The application seeks to achieve two things. To have the appointments declared invalid and set aside, and to have a court order, ordering these affected employees to vacate their positions immediately,” Vanara explained.

Vanara explained that on Monday, SABC executives met with the identified employees and informed them of the broadcaster’s decision.

He revealed that the workers have been asked to continue serving the broadcaster until the court rules on its application.

“They are going to come to work. Nothing changes in respect of their employment status [and] in respect of their obligations to the company, as well as the obligations of the company to them,” Vanara said.

Can SABC’s decision be challenged?

According to the SABC, should the courts determine that the targeted workers’ appointments were invalid, they will be granted leave to exercise their democratic right of challenging the ruling.

Vanara revealed that besides the latest Labour Court application, they are dealing with a number of cases involving workers who have challenged the broadcaster’s decision to strike them off the payroll.

“This application [will] affect people at the group level executives, general managers and right through the respective positions of the organisation…

“You will recall that both the Board [and] Parliament, the shareholder representative, would expect nothing but equal treatment of all the employees that are affected,” Vanara claimed.

It is not clear, at this time anyway, if the workers will band together with their respective trade unions to boycott the public broadcaster’s decision. Although, the emergence of such an unrest cannot be ruled out.