Workers are “not free at e”

1 July 2016

The unlawfully appointed SABC COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng’s personality cult is surely one of the factors at play in the ongoing administrative and governance decay at the SABC. Indeed apersonality cult emerges among others when an individual uses mass media, propaganda, or other methods to create an idealised, heroic, and at times worshipful image, often through unquestioning flattery, praise and, based on being in charge threats to others as a means of manufacturing consent. This includes, internally inside organisations such as the SABC as it has now clearly turned out, the use of disciplinary processes to stifle engagement, suppress freedom of expression and other important rights.

Progressive policies such as the 90 percent local content are attributed to the role of the personality cult and not the organisation. Yet it is the same personality cult that was probably behind the black-out of the South African Communist Party’s (SACP’s) march to the SABC in 2012 and other mass actions demanding more time and space for progressive local content and an end to corruption and the corporate penetration that has now graduated to the level of corporate capture. The black-out and belittling of these progressive efforts were not dissimilar to the recent action taken at the SABC that has led to the suspension of three journalists last week and the hauling of three more this week to processes of disciplinary hearings.

The Guptas-owned ANN7 and The New Age are the worst in such actions and other maltreatment of workers, as declared by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu).

At the SABC, the main problem lies in the weaknesses embedded in the structures and processes that allowed for the emergence of the personality cult that is at the centre of the ongoing administrative and governance decay. But the SABC as a public institution cannot be understood only from within. There are public structures that should play an oversight role and hold the SABC accountable. The public, too, should frankly engage in a self-introspection because the buck should stop with the public if all other structures fail. 

But the whole media industry in South Africa needs to engage in a decisive self-introspection despite now almost all coalescing against the rot at the SABC. The fact of the matter is that there are serious problems that cut across the board. Some media houses that are playing a “holier than thou” protagonist character in relation to the death of the journalism profession and the ongoing administrative and governance decay at the SABC are in fact worse than the SABC in certain respects. They too, do the same things such as prohibiting negative coverage of certain personalities showering them with positive coverage while either not giving others coverage or covering them in a negative light.

Let us look at the situation facing workers at e.TV/e.NCA and how the media has treated them as we intensify our condemnation of the rot at the SABC. Contrast this with the SABC situation. You will recognise that there is politics in the media that determines at each given time who is covered, how and who is not covered.   

On 10 September 2015 Umsebenzi Online (Vol. 14 No. 35) carried a piece titled “The revolution will not be televised, is this different for workers in the media, workers at e.TV/e.NCA”. A part of this title, as can be seen, was adopted from Gil Scott-Heron’s “The revolution will not be televised”, a phrase Scott-Heron adopted from the slogan of the 1960s struggles in the United States against the racist oppression that was suffered by black people.

The piece called for support to workers at e.SAT (commonly known as e.TV/e.NCA) who had gone out the previous week publicly declaring: “We are not free at e”.  They released a statement and said it was time members of the public know what was going on in the media as the world of work, in particular at e.TV/ e.NCA. They appealed for support both from the public and the media industry. The news of their situation did not make it in the media, starting at e.TV/e.NCA where they are being exploited and said they suffered various forms of draconian treatment.

The media ignored the plight of the e.TV/e.NCA workers and did not bother to give them prominent or any coverage at all and organise campaigns in solidarity with them. The issues they raised are no different from what is going on at the SABC by the way if not in certain respects worse.

According to the e.TV/e.NCA workers, e.SAT had over 70 percent Black employees and the viewership is 87 percent Black, yet the top management was made up of White males only. They wanted this discussed and believed that the absence of transformation at e-SAT had a negative bearing on news content and coverage. They wanted to exercise basic employment and labour rations rights, their constitutional right to freedom of association, to join a trade union and have a workplace forum to discuss transformation.

They did not find any joy then, indicating, according to what they saw, that e.TV/e.NCA paid lip service to transformation thus enabling an atmosphere where racism and racist innuendos thrived. A week before, they said, a White female employee referred to Indians as “Coolies” on the Output Desk and no action was taken against her.

The workers further said e.TV/e.NCA’s massive Black audience did not find expression in its editorial policy which was driven by the White-only top management. They pointed out that at an editorial meeting earlier in 2015 a top manager said “reporting on rural areas is pointless because the ‘middle class doesn’t care about the poor’”.

During that time, the e.NCA’s Africa Bureau was closed and fifty workers were retrenched, according to the workers despite the ironical fact that e.NCA calls itself “e.News Channel Africa”. Meanwhile in May the same year top management received 10 percent salary increases and performance bonuses”, said the workers who further asked “Performance for what? How can they be rewarded for job losses?”

Let us be consistent!!!!!

Alex Mohubetswane Mashilo is SACP Spokesperson and writes in his capacity as a full-time professional revolutionary, 1 July 2016