Special Hearings — Media Hearings — UNKNOWN

ZAKES NENE: Thank you Comrade Tseliso.  Mr Chairman looking at the electronic media in our presentation we would mainly focus on the SABC as an institution that was established in 1936. Since it's inception, when it first employed the first black person in 1941 which is Kinirod(?) Masinga, and the second person in 1945 that is Hubert Seshe(?), it then started to create Bantustan broadcasting in all sections of South Africa, dividing communities along racial and ethnic lines. 	So we believe that all other submissions have mainly dealt with the SABC exhaustively, so we decided not to duplicate the efforts and just to give the opportunity to the SABC so that it can also come clean. Suffice it to say that the SABC was National Party if not Broederbond on air.	They created Bantustan broadcasting and were in the forefront of the disinformation campaign of the Nats. All the time we would mainly hear people like Cliff Saunders haunting us with National Party or Broederbond or skewed information so much that most of the black people could not actually understand or differentiate between what was the correct and inaccurate information. 	And let me also deal with the operation of the SABC in terms if its disciplinary code where we had Section 14.  Blacks at the SABC were employed as translators and interpreters. They interpreted for white journalists who covered stories even in the homelands.  Workers lived under frightening fear, they were interviewed in Afrikaans and they had to speak good Afrikaans. The workers were kept petrified by a piece of information of regulation called Section 14. In terms of Section 14, any white person at the SABC was an automatic boss and had the right to fire any black who was hardegat. That was the language that was used at the time.  Workers got severe reprimands for looking at white women colleagues.  They had to give way all the time in passages etc when whites appeared. With due respect, these people could not produce the story of the oppressed people of this country. 	MWASA saw this as a challenge to first liberate the workers at the SABC and to restore their dignity and self esteem.  When our general secretary Stembele Khala was released from Robben Island in 1987, he was given a responsibility to organise the workers at the SABC, and at some stage a Mr Tait who was a human resource manager had agreed to meet a MWASA delegation to hear our side of the story. And Modina Maviba who was a journalist from the Star at the time and the late Sam Mave from the Sowetan and Stembele Khala went to the SABC Auckland Park to meet Mr Tait.  	On their arrival they were met by security branch police at the TV reception and they were arrested. They were taken to John Vorster Square for questioning. The SB's accused them of trying to poison the SABC and warned them to stay away from the Corporation if they did not want trouble. 	They started organising underground because even the workers at the SABC were afraid of being seen talking to the unions and the so-called terrorists. At that time we had members who were belonging to MWASA who were assisting the union to grow.  Among then is Tseliso Ralitabo, the late Dumisa Madasa and Vincent Mfundise. 	We experienced phenomenal growth at the SABC at the time. We kept on approaching the authorities for talks. They blamed in particular the Sowetan for what they called Rampage Against White Afrikaners at the SABC. They refused to distinguish between the Sowetan as a newspaper and MWASA as a union. The bulk of the MWASA leadership at the time came from the Sowetan including Tammy Mzwai, Sam Mabia, Joe Thlole, Horashwe Mojwaje, Agri Klaaste.  	It is common cause that we made a breakthrough eventually and staged the first and the biggest strike the SABC has ever seen. We demanded, among other things, immediate transformation of the Corporation and the introduction of affirmative action.	Let me add that these events happened between 1989 and 1993. At the time when we approached the SABC for talks they were intransigent because we wanted to sign a recognition agreement with SABC but all the time we came to meet them we were actually forced to run for our dear lives because police were after us.  And on the 21st of February 1991 we managed to sign a recognition agreement after the SABC has employed a new resource manager, that is Christo Pretorius. 	At that time we were also faced with wage negotiations that were time-tabled that we had to negotiate wages, and looking at the disparities in wages in the SABC between blacks and whites, we proposed to the SABC that we should first close the gap and then negotiate a salary increase that would be across the board.  SABC refused to accede to that proposal. We then declared a dispute in October 1991 and that dispute lasted until May 1992.  We decided to go on strike. That strike was called One Thousand Days Strike simply because SABC at the time when we deadlocked they told us clearly that even if we could go on strike for 1000 days, we were not going to achieve what we were hoping to achieve and we shouldn't even bother to try and go on strike because we'll be out in the cold and then they would employ scab labour to replace the people on strike.  	Seeing that we are dealing with the kind of Corporation that was enjoying the support of the government of the day we decided to solicit support from the organisations that were part of the liberation movement. Those include ANC, IFP, PAC, AZAPO, South African Council of Churches and other 26 organisations and during that strike those organisations assisted us actually to achieve those objectives. So finally in July 17th SABC called us to a meeting and we signed a wage agreement with our terms that include affirmative action. So it is from then onwards that we were able to see progress in the SABC.  Although at this stage we  still experience some problems.  But from May 1993, when the new board was appointed, the policy of affirmative action was effected and we also reviewed all the rules and regulations of the Corporation and appointment procedures. So to that extent we made good progress but before then things were ugly. 	And let me also add that before 1989, that is the period if I may recall from 1975 to 1985, when Section 14 was in effect.  If people were called for disciplinary hearing, if they were lucky to be called for any disciplinary hearing, they had to choose whether to be sjamboked or to be dismissed and some of those chose to be sjamboked and those who refused to be sjamboked were dismissed without a proper disciplinary hearing. 	So those are the things that actually happened at the SABC.	And lastly, looking at the promotions.  There was a ceiling for any black person, no matter how qualified that person is, that he would not reach a supervisory level. So automatically any white person who would be in the employ of the SABC at the time would be an immediate superior to a certain group of black people in the association.	That is basically our presentation Mr Chairman.  We would like to take questions.