Post Retirement Medical Aid (PRMA)

The High Court has appointed a judge as case manager in the PRMA case going to Court in February next year.

BEMAWU members are automatically claimants in the matter by virtue of membership. If you have recently joined, you will be added as a claimant. If you are no longer a BEMAWU member, you will be removed from the list of claimants.

We now have to finalize the list of claimants as we cannot keep on changing the list by adding at the last minute new claimants.

Our list will close by Friday, 14 August 2009. If your name is not on the list, you will not benefit from the court ruling as we did not bring a class action. In the Coop case the ruling was applicable to the claimants only, and not to the hundreds of other pensioners too.

The case has been set down for 10 court days and will not be postponed again unless something seriously happens.

BEMAWU is the only union involved in this matter. The case is about the funding of your medical aid when on pension, when you need it the most. Medical cost is escalating every year. The SABC pension is almost always not enough to cover medical cost and provide for a bread line living. It is a term and condition of employment that the SABC contributes to your medical aid when on pension. That contribution has been unilaterally withdrawn by the SABC. Although it may sound far in the future, often time flies, and when you about to go on pension, it will be too late to fight for this contribution. A contribution that could make the difference between good health care or not.