The Uasa trade union announced on Tuesday that it was instituting legal proceedings against financially-beleaguered State-owned defence industrial group Denel for contempt of court. This followed Denel’s failure to implement an order of the Labour Court to pay Denel employees their salary arrears.
Last week, the Labour Court ordered the group to pay the workers their outstanding salaries and other required obligations for the months of May, June and July this year by Friday. This did not happen.
“Instead,” reports the union, “on the payment due date as ordered by the Labour Court, Uasa received a letter from Denel’s attorneys stating that the company was "unable to comply with the the court order today [Friday]" and requesting "an indulgence to enable it to work on measures to raise funds". Uasa will proceed with the enforcement of the court order.
The union called on government, which is the only shareholder in Denel, to intervene in the matter. This intervention would be to urgently resolve the company’s liquidity crisis and make certain that its workers received both their outstanding and future salaries.