Engineering News

The Federation of Unions of South Africa (Fedusa) sent a letter to the country’s Minister of Defence, Nosiviwe Noluthando Mapisa-Nqakula, seeking a meeting to urgently discuss the looming retrenchment of the 538 employees of Denel Aviation’s Denel Personnel Solutions/Aero Manpower Group (DPS/AMG).

More than half of the affected workers are represented by Fedusa member trade union Uasa. The federation is hoping to arrange the meeting as soon as possible, which would involve leaders from both Fedusa and Uasa.

Denel Aviation recently confirmed that it will start to retrench the entire workforce of DPS/AMG with effect from the end of March. This is because the South African Air Force (SAAF) will not be renewing its current contract with DPS/AMG, which lapses at that time.

“We believe that the Minister is best placed to deal with our concerns about this issue. Apart form the obvious loss of jobs and socioeconomic repercussions, it would be very unfortunate if these retrenchments go ahead as we will lose critical skills required by our economy,” affirmed Fedusa general-secretary Dennis George. “We feel that the Minister should intervene as a matter of urgency.”

Furthermore, the union federation believes that the retrenchments will cost about R170-million (for severance packages) and will endanger the defence capabilities of the SAAF. DPS has provided skilled maintenance personnel to the SAAF under the AMG contract since 1986.

Denel Aviation is a State-owned aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul company and is part of the Denel defence industrial group. Denel falls under the Department of Public Enterprises.

Fedusa describes itself as the “largest politically nonaligned trade union federation in South Africa” representing “a diverse membership from a variety of sectors in industry”.