Strike pickets up the ante

BESIEGED: CALL FOR SOLIDARITY AS LABOUR ACTION ENTERS DAY SIX

Acting chief financial officer warns crisis could affect negotiations with lenders.

As the crippling labour action at SA Airways (SAA) continues, the central committee of the SA Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) will this morning descend on OR Tambo International Airport to picket in solidarity with striking workers.

The strike, led by the Saftu-affiliated National Metalworkers’ Union of South Africa (Numsa) was sparked by SAA staff demanding higher wages and resisting planned job cuts.

Today marks the sixth day of the strike.

The struggling state-owned airline, which is reliant on billions in government bailouts, has cancelled flights.

SAA acting chief financial officer Deon Fredericks warned the crisis could adversely affect negotiations with lenders.

Describing SAA management as “extraordinary intransigent”, Saftu, in a joint statement with Numsa and the SA Cabin Crew Association (Sacca), called on “all workers throughout the country to show solidarity by picketing”.

The joint statement read: “Both Numsa and Sacca have resolved that the strike must be intensified because the board and some executive managers would rather see SAA collapse than root out corruption, looting and maladministration.

“SAA must drastically reduce its costs. Insourcing services, which it has the capacity to offer internally, is an obvious solution. Their refusal is proof that they want the airline to collapse.”

The statement added that the workers’ opposition to mass retrenchments was legitimate.

The SAA recently had “the audacity to inform workers that 944 of them will be affected by retrenchments”.

This was “brazenly communicated via the media and not through consultation as per the provisions of section 189 of the LRA of 1996”, it added.

The statement said Numsa was “in the process of consulting workers about a secondary strike in aviation in response to this deliberate provocation by the SAA board and executive management”.

The union has begun consultations with various entities on launching a secondary strike.

These include the Civil Aviation Authority, Mango Airline, Safair, SA Express, Airports Company SA Reshebile Security, Morena Cleaning, Vizini, Azda, Swissport, Bidair Services and Comair.

“We are also consulting airline catering companies such as Airchefs, Food Direction, LSG Sky Chefs, and Dnata,” said Numsa, adding: “This is a fight for survival for all workers in aviation.

“We are fighting against retrenchment, corruption and privatisation.

“We call on all our members in these companies to join in solidarity because the changes at SAA will affect them too.

“The airline can and must be saved, in order to preserve jobs along the value chain.

“This secondary strike will have the impact of shutting down the entire aviation sector because it is clear that government, as the shareholder, would rather sacrifice workers, than deal with corruption at state-owned entities, SAA in particular,” read the statement.

The labour federation, Numsa and Sacca also condemned the employment of foreign nationals in key strategic positions, when there were South Africans with those skills. “This is why the wage bill is so high.

“We will not accept retrenchments until the looting of SAA is thoroughly dealt with,” read the statement.