Trade union, Solidarity, says it will oppose the SAA’s consultation process that will affect more than 4 700 employees.
The union is responding to an announcement by the business rescue practitioners.
On Monday afternoon, the practitioners announced that SAA had issued a notice of the intention to begin imminent consultations in terms of Section 189 of the Labour Relations Act.
SAA entered a form of bankruptcy protection in December 2019, with administrators taking over management of the state-owned airline. The practitioners, Les Matuson and Siviwe Dongwana, say the airline has accumulated losses of about R26 billion over the past six years.
Head of Solidarity’s Research Institute Connie Mulder outlines their plan to oppose the Section 189 process.
“I think we will oppose the plan but on slightly different grounds. What we are concerned about is we have not yet seen a business rescue plan. We have not seen where this airline is going yet and we have not had that plan confirmed yet and they are already announcing retrenchments and handing out Section 189s. Our position from the start has been realistic. We have realised how deeply troubled SAA is and we have submitted our BRP (Business Rescue Plan) to stave off a liquidation which is all jobs lost. We always knew that retrenchments might be an option, but we are of the opinion that you should exhaust all other avenues before you go in this direction,” says Mulder.
The video below contains reaction of unions to SAA’s looming retrenchments:
