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Cape Town - There appears to be unhappiness among personnel of the Western Province Rugby Union regarding bonuses.
And the union, which is struggling financially, is not prepared to negotiate on the matter.
An article on Netwerk24 indicates that only staff on grades 4-7 salary tiers received their annual bonuses (ranging from 6%-100%) in November. The middle and senior executives in grades 1-3 will, however, only receive a 6% increase in March 2018 and a bonus of 50%.
“We have kept to our word that we don’t want to spend money extravagantly. We do not want to make a Steinhoff of Western Province. Our resources will be reduced if 13th cheques are paid over job security,” WP president Thelo Wakefield stated.
Wakefield added that the union was expecting cash injections and was planning to repay senior personnel.
The WP president added that personnel should understand the union’s financial position before complaining about salaries.
Piet Heymans, the secretary and spokesperson of the trade union Sport Employers Unite, said they’ll be meeting with the union in the New Year to discuss the issue.
“WP’s compensation committee recommended that all employees get the same increase. Why then change your committee’s own decision? It may be an option that those who did not get increases will be paid retrospectively, but in that case it should be in writing.”
The WP Rugby Union was forced to liquidate its commercial arm last year to evade a multi-million Rand claim from sports marketing company Aerios.
The union was then saved by Remgro, an investment company which had a 24.9 percent stake-holding in the WP business wing.
However, Remgro announced its withdrawal of financial support in early August, leaving WP with R40m debt.
