President Cyril Ramaphosa has called for cool heads around the negotiating table to end the wage deadlock and strike currently underway at South African Airways (SAA).
Ramaphosa will soon be jetting back to South Africa after attending the Brics Summit in Brazil.
“And they’ve not been able to find one another around issues of wages. Now, this happens all the time in various companies and in various sectors, but I don’t believe that we should panic but when it rains it pours. Well in labour relations, things do sort of get off the rails from time to time and it really relies and depends on cool heads.”
Meanwhile, a left-leaning political party, the Land Party, has joined the striking employees of SAA in their second day of protest at the Cape Town International Airport. The Land Party says it is fully behind the strike for salary increases and is opposed to retrenchments.
Party leader Gcobani Ndzongana says unemployment in the country has already reached unacceptable levels and further job losses will be disastrous for the economy.
“Retrenchments is a chaos. In fact, if government thinks it’s a solution it’s creating a problem for itself. The more you’ve got unemployed people, I’m telling you, that’s where you are going to see this country revolting against government. So, in fact government is creating a problem for itself. They must cut salaries.”
Striking SAA workers have braved heavy winds at the Cape Town International Airport.
South African Federation of Trade Unions Provincial Deputy President, Nyaniso Siyana says they are not backing down.
“Workers continue to support the strike as you can see. Also, the numbers are still with us. Workers are still adamant that they can still achieve and support their demands, protesting for the second day against salary increases.”
