Staffers at e.tv are jubilant at this week’s Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) ruling that sacked assignments editor Barbara Boswell be reinstated. The CCMA also awarded Boswell R84 000 in backpay.
Boswell was sacked in November last year on a charge of gross insubordination. She was one of several e.tv staffers to fall victim to ”cowboy-style” management, senior e.tv staff say.
”This is a wonderful vindication of Boswell,” said one staffer this week, ”and of everyone who’s had the axe wielded over them during the past year or so.”
The Mail & Guardian reported last year that e.tv staff were bitterly unhappy with labour relations at the free-to-air broadcaster.
Complaints centred in particular on CEO Marcel Golding and channel director Quraysh Patel, and staffers spoke of rock-bottom morale.
”The basic management tool at e.tv is: Do as we say or you’re fired,” a senior staffer said this week.
”The CCMA ruling is a major humiliation for management, and a wonderful boost for staff morale — the news just swept through the building this morning [Thursday].”
There is still a ”climate of fear”, the staffer said, ”though they [management] tried to tone down the worst excesses after adverse publicity last year. But you’re still marched out of the building if you dispute anything professional.”
Another senior staffer commented that the CCMA ruling is ”a moral victory for sanity in this place”.
The M&G understands that Boswell ran foul of management when she queried a decision made by Kanthan Pillay, e.tv’s head of corporate affairs, who had just assumed the role of news executive director.
Boswell’s sacking came amid a flurry of high-profile departures from the broadcaster last year. Among the lengthy list of former e.tv staffers are reporters Guy Oliver, Anton Snyman and Donald Chauke, sports personality Edward Griffiths, former commercial director Quentin Green and former programme controller Ilse van Schalkwyk. Departures this year include former head of news Jimi Matthews and arts producer Roger Lucey.
Pillay told the M&G he had not seen the ruling and so could not comment. A message left with Golding’s secretary was not returned.