SABC ‘eight’: trade unions want Hlaudi to pay costs
TRADE unions Solidarity and the Broadcasting, Electronic, Media & Allied Workers Union (Bemawu) have asked the Labour Court to include former chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng as a respondent in their cost order related to their challenge of the sacking of eight SABC employees.
The application that Motsoeneng should be added as a respondent in the two unions’ cost order case against the SABC will be heard in the Labour Court in Johannesburg on Tuesday, Solidarity said yesterday.
The move comes after the Labour Court’s 2016 ruling that the SABC 8 had been dismissed unlawfully. They were fired for opposing Motsoeneng’s impromptu policy that the SABC should not, among other instructions, show footage of violent strikes or community protests.
A court has ruled that Motsoeneng cannot occupy any position at the SABC until he undergoes an internal disciplinarye hearing as instructed by the public protector who found that Motsoeneng unlawfully raised his pay, fired those who disagreed with him and lied about a matric certificate. The court also granted, with costs, the applications of Solidarity and Bemawu, each representing four of the SABC members, that the journalists should be reinstated.
Solidarity’s Anton van der Bijl said the trade unions would argue that although Motsoeneng did not carry out the instruction himself, the de facto decision to dismiss the journalists was carried out by Simon Tebele on his instruction. Tebele has already been added as a respondent. – ANA