ORGANISED labour say they plan to appeal the South Gauteng High Court judgment from Tuesday that placed struggling low-cost carrier Mango into voluntary business rescue, effective from July, and dismissed their case.
Labour’s application was opposed by Mango, whose board wanted to appoint its own administrator in the business rescue process.
The Mango Pilots Association, the South African Cabin Crew Association and the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa said yesterday that they had noted the order which was handed down by Judge Michael Antonie, which granted the Mango board’s application for it to be placed under voluntary business rescue.
Delivering his decision, Antonie said it was clear that both parties agreed that the airline should urgently be placed in administration.
Numsa General Secretary Irvin Jim said regardless of the ruling, unions took pride in compelling Mango into business rescue, pointing out that the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) would have permitted Mango’s collapse, leading to liquidation proceedings.
“We want to ensure a genuine turn-around strategy, which is not based on retrenchments, but on making the business viable in the long term.
“We also want to prevent another wasteful rescue process where consultants earned in excess of R200 million, whilst workers were denied their salaries, and starved for many months as a result,” labour said yesterday
The DPE applauded the court’s decision underlining that it supported the decisions made by both boards of Mango and South African Airways the parent company
“The decision is good news for stakeholders in the aviation industry as it brings certainty to the process that will unfold to restructure Mango and ensure we have a sustainable aviation asset that will service the low-cost market in the country,” the DPE said in a statement.
The department added that the restructuring of SAA’s subsidiaries, Mango, SAA Technical and Airchefs would ensure that the SAA Group would be “fit for purpose” in future.
BUSINESS REPORT