Bemawu concerned over Covid-19 at SABC
The Broadcasting, Electronic, Media and Allied Workers Union (Bemawu) says it’s extremely concerned at reports that six staffers at the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) have tested positive for Covid-19.
The union’s president Hannes du Buisson says the SABC needs to put more measures in place to ensure that workers are not exposed to coronavirus.
"We are concerned about high cases of coronavirus at the SABC. In some instance, they acted very quickly when we reported incidents like shortage of sanitisers and thermometers, we understand it is an essential service being exposed to high-risk services, but we believe the SABC is currently bringing unnecessary people to the workplace," says Du Buisson.
He says some of the work can wait until the coronavirus pandemic has been brought under control.
"Like conducting disciplinary inquiries, that can wait until the coronavirus situation is under control. It is unnecessary to expose employees to the virus.
He says it is concerning that one of the people who tested positive was responsible for the distribution of personal protective equipment.
"We have received information that the manager who was responsible for packaging PPE's for the distribution to the staff has tested positive for the virus.
“We were assured that those PPE's will not be distributed to the staff, we are concerned and we believe they should institute better provisions to ensure that the staff will not be infected with the virus.”
The public broadcaster has since launched an investigation into the incident.
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