BusinessLive reports that the two largest unions at SA Airways (SAA) said on Monday that minister of public enterprises Pravin Gordhan’s attempt to attribute the carrier’s deepening financial crisis to their week-long strike was an opportunistic attempt to deflect attention from management and board failures.
National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) and SA Cabin Crew Association (Sacca) members at the airline went on an eight-day strike before accepting a 5.9% pay rise. In a joint statement on Tuesday, the unions blamed the SAA board and senior management for “creating this environment”. The state-owned airline’s management was aware as early as June 2019 that there would not be enough money for operational costs from November, they claimed. “In the same week that we announced our plans to embark on strike action, on Monday November 11 2019, the acting CFO Deon Fredericks again confirmed there was no money for salaries for the remainder of the year. Therefore, it is absurd in the extreme to blame the cash crisis on the strike when both the board and executive management were aware of the situation six months ago, but chose to do nothing,” the unions said. On Sunday, the department of public enterprises said in a statement that SAA would go through a “radical restructuring process” to survive.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Luyolo Mkentane at BusinessLive
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