Mail & Guardian CEO confident publication will remain available as job cuts loom
The news outlet's 25 staff members received section 189 notices, signalling a move to shed jobs as it struggles to stay afloat.
Mail & Guardian newspaper on a stash of other publications. Picture: EWN
JOHANNESBURG - While the future of employees at popular publication, Mail & Guardian, is uncertain, CEO Hoosain Karjieker is confident it will remain available to its readers beyond the restructuring process.
The news outlet's 25 staff members received section 189 notices, signalling a move to shed jobs as it struggles to stay afloat.
But Karjieker said this doesn't signal the end of the Friday newspaper.
READ: 'Mail & Guardian' could be facing a jobs bloodbath as staff receive Section 189 notices
"No, absolutely not. I mean, I think that it resisted doing this type of thing. We had done some restructure during the course of last year, but we confined it to a theme that we realised as this year got underway, especially with these sort of dramatic rise in distribution costs, that a more urgent intervention was required for us to stabilise the company once again."
Karjieker envisages a conclusion of the process in June but stresses that the process will not affect all employees.
"After situations, one prefers not to drag the situation out for too long, but we are sort of aware and cognisant of what the Labour Relations Act requires from us. So it's very much in the consultative process and we're hoping to complete that process perhaps by the end of June or, you know, depending on how those negotiations go."