Pretoria - The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) launched a scathing attack on the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) for calling on the government to liquidate the troubled SAA.
Outa made a call to the Department of Public Enterprises following reports that the national carrier spent millions on a business rescue process while scores of employees have not been paid since the airline grounded last year as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Outa said the department and Treasury must liquidate SAA, pay out the workers and stop wasting taxes in drawn-out and exorbitant plans to revive the airline that is just an airline by name only.
Executive Manager for Public Governance at Outa Julius Kleynhans said, in their view, based on a considered analysis, SAA was beyond repair and the government should close it down and avoid wasting the country’s limited taxes.
He said they should do the right thing and settle employees’ retrenchment packages.
The organisation's Transport Advisor Joachim Vermooten said SAA’s business rescue plan is fundamentally flawed and will fail.
He said: "The plan is over-ambitious, based on unrealistic forecasts, does not take into account the depressing market conditions fuelled by the Covid-19 pandemic and, according to the Public Enterprises Minister, is only about half-funded.”
However, Numsa's spokesperson Phakamile Hlubi-Majola, who has also been critical of exorbitant plans to rescue the airline, said the union was not surprised by Outa’s "anti-working class" stance.
She said: "From an ideological, commercial and logical standpoint, we strongly disagree with those who say that SAA must cease to exist.
"SAA is not just an airline, it is a State owned Enterprise whose purpose is to grow the tourism and aviation sectors in the country. As a result of its existence, it contributes 34 000 jobs along the value chain, and its collapse is being felt in all companies which trade with it and its subsidiaries."
She said Stats SA has done research which confirms that the average worker in South Africa supports five to seven extended family members.
"In simple terms, the collapse of SAA means that at least 170 000 people are directly affected. Therefore, it is grossly irresponsible to support a proposal which will result in swathes of the working class losing their jobs, at a time when our economy is in recession and we are facing a job loss bloodbath in the manufacturing sector."
Hlubi-Majola said it was also false to claim that SAA has no role to play in the current Covid-19 climate.
She said airlines all over the world were investing in aviation and tourism and with the arrival of vaccines there is an expectation that the airline and tourism industry will return to normal.
"It is also absurd to propose that workers who contributed many years to SAA should just walk away from the airline with nothing and without even their provident fund which is money owed to them.
"It is shocking and disgraceful that after all the suffering that workers at SAA have gone through, Outa are calling for them to suffer even more.
"Liquidation would mean that workers are far worse off financially. But we are not surprised by Outa. They have always been anti-working class and they have repeatedly called for the collapse of the airline. They do not care at all about the welfare of workers and their families.
"We condemn them with the contempt they deserve for their cold-hearted recklessness. Every job is worth saving in South Africa, and that should be the attitude of all progressive people who care about the future of this country. Business rescue practitioners were paid R200 million and workers have not received a cent. Outa does not care about that kind of looting, but rather calls for liquidation which would worsen the suffering of workers and their families. They are a disgrace."
Numsa and the South African Cabin Crew Association are awaiting a judgement from the labour court in Johannesburg after seeking intervention to force the airline to pay workers who refused to sign a settlement deal to accept three months of salary and a 5.9% increase while forfeiting all other salary from 2020.
Pretoria News