Unions say ‘lives on the line’ as SAA waits for funds

While SAA’s business rescue practitioners (BRPs) wait for the government to source the more than R10bn needed to get the stricken state-owned airline up and running again, unions say the human cost is high.

The National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa), the South African Cabin Crew Association (Sacca) and South African Airways Pilots’ Association (Saapa) all report that their members are in dire financial straits, having in most cases not received salaries for five months.

The unions said those who took voluntary severance have not received their retrenchment packages.

SAA staff have, however, received payments from the Covid-19 Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme and the Unemployment Insurance Fund.

“People’s lives are on the line here. People have lost houses, they’ve lost cars, their kids are getting kicked out of school and they don’t knowwhere their next meal is going to come from,” said Numsa’s national spokesperson, Phakamile Hlubi-Majola.

The joint BRPs, Siviwe Dongwana and Les Matuson, confirmed that more than 3,000 of the just under 5,000 SAA employees took voluntary severance packages. The carrier now has about 1,800 staff.

Asked to comment about funding for the airline, the BRPs said: “We are waiting for a response from the lenders on funding and obviously the medium-term budget.”

Finance minister Tito Mboweni will present the budget on October 28 after requesting a one-week delay.

SA’s banks have been approached to provide bridging finance while the government finds the funds needed to relaunch SAA.

Hlubi-Majola said Numsa lays the blame for the dire situation facing SAA staff on the department of public enterprises.

“It’s a disgrace and a disaster and they [the department] must own it. They have the power to fix this. Where have you heard of a BRP process that takes 10 months? They undertook voluntary business rescue. It was their process.”

The department did not respond to requests for comment. The National Treasury declined to comment.

Hlubi-Majola said these issues have been “raised sharply” with SAA management, the department of public enterprises and the BRPs, who she said have been “earning their exorbitant fees”.

The BRPs declined to comment on their fees.

Hlubi-Majola said what also angers Numsa is that the department of public enterprises had issued many “stinging, angry statements attacking Numsa and Sacca because they were taking too long to get the members to agree to VSPs [voluntary severance packages]”.

“Eventually we committed and we got members to sign, but where is the money?”

The Treasury, which will give the green light for funds for SAA, was also criticised after the budget was delayed. Hlubi-Majola asked where that would leave SAA workers.

Referring to tweets by Mboweni, HlubiMajola said: “Tito is cooking up a storm with his bad cooking. Does he care about whether workers have something to eat while he is imposing his bad cooking skills on us?”

Sacca president Zazi Nsibanyoni-Mugambi said a lot of staff “are in financial ruin because of five months without a salary. They’ve made arrangements to a certain point. There is no guarantee of any funding as it stands right now.”

Grant Back, chair of Saapa and a captain at SAA, believes the BRPs have been manipulated by the department of public enterprises, which in turn is “waiting for a miracle to fall out of the sky”.

He said pilots have been under immense strain over the past few months.

“It’s been a burden on many. I know a lot of people have suffered nervous breakdowns ... a lot of people have gone into clinics. It is very, very dire.”

Back said he has received reports of pilots having cars repossessed, being forced to sell their homes or borrow money from family to survive.

He said that since the lockdown was imposed at the end of March, SAA had forced pilots to use their accumulated leave, and then from April until now “only those pilots that were lucky enough to be chosen to fly repatriation flights and flights for the World Food Programme were paid”.

He said this applied to a small percentage of the about 500 SAA pilots based in SA. In total, SAA has about 617 pilots, with about 100 on contract.

Back said a lot of pilots, along with cabin crew and ground staff, had taken voluntary severance packages but had not seen any funds materialise.