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Carol Paton writes that it is already a widely held view that the strike at SAA is about more than the airline itself.
The National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) has gone to war over a range of proxy issues, from the principle of privatising state assets to the ANC’s general economic policy and ideological stance. In all of this, the employees’ wage demand — for a double-inflation increase from a failing company that does not know where the money for salaries over the next few months will come from — is a side order. How it works out will depend on how the government responds. Numsa has quickly tired of meeting with SAA management and its board. In talks convened by the CCMA on Saturday, the unions did not move from their original demands. In fact, since the strike began they have added new ones. And because it is the government that holds the purse strings and this is a strike over government policy, it is public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan and finance minister Tito Mboweni whom Numsa really wants to meet at the negotiating table. If Gordhan steps into the fray, like he did over Eskom’s wage negotiation in 2018, any prospect that SAA will ever become a fit-for-purpose airline run on commercial principles and therefore an attractive proposition for a buyer will be killed off immediately. So will the prospect that the government will ever get a grip on public finances and the public sector wage bill, or on the restructuring of Eskom.
- Read the full original of Carol Paton’s insightful article at BusinessLive (paywall access only)
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page