By Alexander Profitable JOHANNESBURG, Dec 11 (Reuters) - So
By Alexander Profitable
JOHANNESBURG, Dec 11 (Reuters) – South Africa’s authorities and commerce unions are at loggerheads over unpaid salaries at South African Airways (SAA), which might result in a messy court docket battle that will additional complicate efforts to rescue the struggling airline.
State-owned SAA has not made a revenue in nearly a decade and was already below chapter safety when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, exacerbating its woes. It halted all however repatriation and cargo flights in March earlier than suspending all operations in September.
Some workers haven’t been paid since March.
The ministry chargeable for SAA needs staff to simply accept three months of unpaid wages totalling 600 million rand ($40 million) because it pushes to get the nationwide provider again within the air subsequent yr.
However unions say their members are due extra: 5 months’ wage for many who accepted voluntary severance packages earlier than a September deadline and eight months for these nonetheless in layoff talks.
That will be along with the severance packages themselves, which have but to be paid.
Out of SAA’s roughly 4,500 employees when it entered administration in December 2019, round 3,200 have accepted severance phrases and 1,300 are nonetheless in layoff consultations.
Kgathatso Tlhakudi, director-general of the Division of Public Enterprises, stated on Friday the federal government couldn’t settle for unions’ stance.
“Eight months can’t be justified on the idea that this airline for the higher a part of that eight months was not working,” he stated in an audio clip the division despatched to reporters. “These are public funds that we’re coping with and we have to take care of them with the prudence they require.”
Some unions, together with Solidarity, NTM and NUMSA, have made a counter-proposal to the DPE for staff to be paid three months’ wage now, with the rest deferred till the airline will get a promised bailout from the federal government and a restructuring plan will be carried out.
The SAA Pilots’ Affiliation (SAAPA) has taken a more durable line, rejecting the federal government provide outright and sending a letter to the DPE telling it to “stop and desist”.
The legislation dictates SAA’s directors must be those negotiating with labour and they need to allocate funding according to the restructuring plan accepted by collectors in July, SAAPA says.
SAAPA has given SAA’s directors till shut of enterprise on Monday to undertake to pay its members a 13th cheque from final yr that ought to have been paid in April and to ringfence enough funds to cowl unpaid salaries from this yr. If these undertakings usually are not made, SAAPA will method the courts, its chairman Grant Again stated.
($1 = 15.1495 rand)
(Reporting by Alexander Profitable, enhancing by Louise Heavens)
(([email protected]; +27 10 346 1076))
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the creator and don’t essentially mirror these of Nasdaq, Inc.