Salary Negotiations Final Offer

The SABC Board has made a final offer of 11% ATB increase on condition that we agree to a multi-term wage agreement.

What does a Multi-term agreement mean?

What the SABC Board wants is to not engage with us for the next two years to negotiate a salary increase. They want us to agree to an increase of the previous year’s average CPI-X +1% for the financial years 2009/2010 and 2010/2011.

For example, if the average CPI-X of this current year (2008) at 31 December 2008 is 5%, members will automatically receive a 6% increase. More examples…

Average CPI-X as at 31 December 2008 = 5%. Your increase on 1 April 2009 will be 6%.
Average CPI-X as at 31 December 2009 = 7%. Your increase on 1 April 2010 will be 8%.

The average CPI-X for the past four years was:

2004 – 4.3%
2005 – 3.9%
2006 – 4.6%
2007 – 6.5%

The only time the SABC Board is prepared to negotiate with us during this period is when the CPI-X drops below 4% or rises to 9% or more.

In terms of an increase in the housing subsidy, meal subsidy and gym subsidy the SABC Board is not interested to finalise any increase in these subsidies. Instead, the Board is proposing to move negotiations to August 2008 on those issues.

CPI-X EXCLUDES interest rates on bonds.
Therefore, if there is a sharp rise in the interest rate of your bond, the CPI-X will NOT be influenced by this and will NOT increase and will NOT offer us the opportunity to negotiate an inflation based salary increase. You will have to absorb such an increase yourself!

The SABC Board is still demanding that BEMAWU members on scale code 130 and above be EXCLUDED from this agreement. (See previous post for more detail on this)

As the negotiations team we need a mandate from you.

Do we accept the 11% ATB increase with the multi-term agreement, and by doing so accept that
1.1 for the next two years we will NOT be able to negotiate a salary increase on your behalf unless the average CPI-X drops below 4% or rises to 9% or more
1.2 Housing, Gym and Meal Subsidy will be discussed and negotiated in August 2008 with absolutely no guarantee it will be increased
1.3 Even if interest rates on bonds double, we will NOT be able to engage the SABC Board on further negotiations for a salary increase?

If we do not accept the 11% as presented to us, we can continue to negotiate until we reach a deadlock, which will be the next step as the SABC Board has made a final offer.

Should we accept that BEMAWU members on scale code 130 be excluded from the Agreement, or should we demand that all BEMAWU members is covered by the Agreement?

Please respond by sms or e-mail or fax with “ACCEPT” or “REJECT” It is important that you use the exact words as it will be counted automatically by computer.

Please post your thoughts here. Also exercise your vote on the front panel.

To sms reply to sms message
To fax use 0866715585
To mail use headoffice@bemawu.org.za