Two trade unions, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) and the South African Cabin Crew Association (Sacca), have fiercely attacked the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) and the management of financially-beleaguered State-owned national flag carrier South African Airways (SAA) for failing to deliver on their undertakings to, and payment of, SAA employees. In a joint statement, the unions warned that they intended to take legal action against SAA for not paying its workers their salaries and benefits over the past four months.

SAA was put into business rescue last December. It is now at the beginning of a relaunch process following the approval of its business rescue plan. Part of the relaunch process is the payment of voluntary severance packages (VSPs) to SAA personnel who cannot be accommodated in the downsized relaunched airline. In terms of the plan, the relaunched SAA will start with only 1 000 staff.

However, although the DPE had assured the unions and workers that R2.2-billion had been budgeted to fund the VSPs, it had now informed them that this funding has, in fact, not yet been confirmed. Nevertheless, it is still urging SAA staff to sign the VSP agreements with a deadline set for September 2. In response, Numsa and Sacca are urging their members not to sign these agreements. The unions fear that by signing the VSP agreements the workers would be ending their relationship with SAA without any guarantee that they would actually receive their money.

“What kind of game is this that they [DPE] are playing? It seems that they are gambling with our members lives and we condemn this is the strongest terms,” asserted the two unions. “We have good reason to be concerned given that SAA employees have not received any salary for the last four months …. We have demanded that SAA pay employees outstanding salaries, and they are passing the buck. They refuse to take responsibility for non-payment claiming that the Business Rescue Practitioners and the Department of Public Enterprises are responsible for paying salaries. They are throwing workers under the bus, and running away from their legal obligations.”

Numsa and Sacca rejected the arguments of the SAA management and pointed out that the Business Rescue Practitioners had been paid their fees, which totalled R30-million. The unions had informed their lawyers of their intent to institute legal action against SAA over its failure to fulfil its legal salaries and benefits obligations to its employees.

“The SAA management has [also] said in bilateral engagements with us that they want to lower the start-up number of employees from 1 000 to just under 400 employees, and it seems they are not committed to the [agreed] Social Plan,” reported the unions. “We want to make it clear that we will not tolerate any deviation from the adopted business rescue plan which clearly states that SAA will have a start-up number of 1 000 employees and [another] 1 000 employees on the Training Lay Off scheme.”

Numsa and Sacca also demanded that the entire current SAA board and executive be dismissed. “We will not tolerate any of these current board members or executives continuing to occupy positions in the ‘new’ SAA as this will doom the airline to fail before it has even had a chance to take off.”