The Johannesburg Labour Court has granted the country’s oldest journalists’ union, the South African Union of Journalists, an order allowing its provisional liquidation.
Labour Judge Musi gave interested parties until 10am on March 15 to state why he should not make the order final.
He also ruled that the order be published in the Government Gazette and a newspaper with a national circulation.
Once the order is made final, a liquidator will be appointed to wind up the union’s affairs.
The union, first founded in the 1920s, has in recent years become dysfunctional, although it still has trust funds with considerable assets.
But as membership fell from a one-time high of about 900, apathy robbed the union of dynamic leaders and a vision that could excite members into action.
In a letter to its remaining members dated February 9, the union’s interim national executive said the application followed a vote by union members last year.
”Those members who voted in the ballot, which had to be conducted in a certain way to conform with the union’s constitution and national labour legislation, provided the national executive committee with a clear mandate to undertake the process,” the letter read.
The vote itself took about a year to organise. It followed a decision by the union’s last congress, held in Durban in 2003, to dissolve the organisation. — Sapa