Workers threaten to ‘switch off’ NBC

SHOULD the management of the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) not meet workers’ salary demands by Friday, they will go on strike.

The employees want a salary increase of 13 per cent.Apart from this, they want their housing subsidies increased to 60 per cent. In a strongly worded letter, NBC workers further demand equal treatment by the NBC board.They claim that their overtime claims are slashed in half – something which they refer to as harassment.NBC employees further demand that Government ‘must treat all parastatals equally in terms of financial assistance’.Contractors working in the licensing department should be fired, as they ‘are getting paid for work not done’, the petition further states.Contract workers should be employed permanently and vacancies should first be advertised internally.They also want management to speak out on the fate of ‘the parked managers’.An attempt by four senior NBC managers to get the Labour Court in Windhoek to order a stop to the NBC’s restructuring ended in failure in May last year.The application brought by the four members of the NBC’s executive committee on March 14 2011 was premature, as it was based on mere fears that they might be dismissed from the NBC without any decision to dismiss them having been taken so far, Acting Judge Harald Geier said when he dismissed the application.The four managers – General Manager: Radio Services Claudia Iikela, General Manager: Commercial Services Menesia Muinjo, General Manager: Marketing and Corporate Communication, Umbi Karuaihe-Upi, and General Manager: Project Planning Theo Karipi – were asking the Labour Court to declare the NBC’s restructuring process unlawful and in conflict with the Labour Act. NBC Director General Albertus Aochamub recently reiterated that it is ‘not true that the intention is to put the previous exco on the streets’.By May this year, a process is expected to be completed to determine the future of the former executive employees, he said.Receiving the petition yesterday afternoon, Alex Shimuafeni, the chief commercial officer, said: ‘Management is willing and able to talk.’He said the NBC management had informed Namibia Public Workers Union (Napwu) that they are willing to continue negotiating.