Unions drag SAA to court over salaries

The Labour Court yesterday heard an application by unions to force SAA to treat its employees equally and pay those who refused to sign an agreement to waive other missed salaries last year.

This comes after a large number of unionized SAA employees refused to sign a proposed agreement to waive most of their 2020 salaries and receive only three-month salaries and a 5.9% increase.

Workers led by the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) and the South African Cabin Crew Association (Sacca) revealed that their finances had deteriorated greatly since the airline was grounded by the pandemic, yet hundreds of millions were spent on a business rescue process benefiting only a few executives.

The unions argued that SAA had the money to pay salaries but it paid only the employees who were desperate enough to accept a clause to let go of most of their missed 2020 salaries even though they knew this was not fair.

Subsequently, Numsa and Sacca lodged the urgent application to have the Labour Court declare it was illegal for the SAA to pay salaries and an increase to employees who signed its contract while neglecting those who wanted to fight for a better deal.

Representing the unions was Minaar Niehaus, who argued before Judge Andrew van Niekerk that SAA itself acknowledged in its affidavit that employees who did not sign the settlement agreement faced financial hardship.

“It is common cause on the papers that the suffering is of imaginable proportions and deteriorates on a daily basis. The respondent (SAA) furthermore concedes that employees experienced extremely financial hardship for several months.

“Likewise, the respondent does not dispute in their answering affidavit that the applicant’s members have endured immense financial suffering and prejudice over a protracted period of time, and those individual employees found themselves in desperate financial positions. Some of them are in dire financial positions. That is a common cause on the papers and it is not being disputed my Lord,” he said.

Niehaus said in respect to the constitutional rights of employees in the context of business rescue, these (workers) are not commercial commodities and therefore one could not look at financial hardship from a commercial perspective.

“The loss of a commercial deal is one thing, but here we are talking about the livelihood of employees. With respect, the court can take judicial cognisance of all socio-economic realities.”

He said ordinary employees in this country lived from month to month and did not have the luxury of assets and savings, making it disastrous to go for six to seven months without salaries – something that takes away their human dignity, autonomy, and self-determination.

However, representing SAA was Andrew Redding, who argued that the money for the settlement agreement was made available to SAA by the Department of Public Enterprises to help settle the dispute, and therefore those who chose not to sign the agreement still had their claim for a better deal.

He said this was not really an application by employees saying they were not treated equally, but simply saying the government gave SAA money, some employees received and they too wanted it. He said their claim for a desired deal was still intact as they did not sign the agreement.

Redding said SAA was not compelling those employees to sign the settlement deal.

Numsa spokesperson Phakamile Hlubi-Majola said this was a result of a cruel calculated move by the Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan.

She said: “Numsa and Sacca regard this adopted stance by the department as not just inhumane and blackmail, but also as an exploitation of workers’ vulnerability. They have already suffered for too long, but the department insists on squeezing them for even more.

“It is our view that Minister Gordhan is attempting to bully our members into accepting an unfair proposal. Our members are within their rights to reject the settlement proposal because it means they will be financially worse off than they are already. Workers at SAA have already sacrificed 3 200 jobs in order for the airline to be restructured.

“To be blunt, Minister Gordhan’s true colours of being anti-working class are exposed in that for months now he has denied workers at SA Express and SAA an income. These workers have lost their livelihoods, they have lost their homes, and they cannot take care of the basic needs of their families.”

Judge Van Niekerk reserved judgment.

-Pretoria News

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