Financially-beleaguered State-owned defence industrial group Denel has been granted yet another time extension to try and achieve compliance with the Labour Court order of August 4 last year, the Uasa trade union has reported. The Labour Court had then ruled, in a case brought by the union, that the company had to pay its workers their full salaries and fulfil all its other contractual obligations towards them, regarding the months of May, June and July last year.
The Court has now given Denel a further delay, until July 23, to come up with a practical programme to comply with last August’s court order. The Court also ordered Denel to present it with an affidavit, reporting its progress in complying with the court order, a minimum of ten days before the Court reconvened to consider the matter.
“The delay is painful for Uasa members in Denel’s employ who are in dire financial straits due to partial salary payments since last year July,” observed the union. “The fact that (the judge) postponed the case again proves that Denel has no solid game plan to remedy the situation with its employees.”
Uasa also reported that Denel had invited it to a meeting “to discuss the way forward”. The union is one of the oldest in South Africa, being founded in 1894 and was previously known as the United Association of South Africa. It represented nearly 73 000 workers across a range of sectors and was currently a member of the Federation of Trade Unions of South Africa.