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BL Premium reports that Labour Court judge Andre van Niekerk ruled on Monday that the 14 directors of Denel were not in contempt of court for failing to obey a court order to pay employees at the state-owned arms maker in full.
Trade unions Solidarity and Uasa in December asked the court to hold directors of Denel personally liable for disobeying a court order to pay workers their salary arrears. Last year, Van Niekerk had ordered the state-owned enterprise to pay the outstanding salaries to staff who had not received their full salaries from May to July 2020 by 7 August, but only one division complied. The directors told the court they had unsuccessfully applied to the government to waive the stringent requirements attached to recapitalisation bailout funds so they could pay employees. They had also sent the National Treasury an application for emergency funding and had held emergency board meetings and weekly follow-ups with the government and the Treasury. Van Niekerk said to find the directors in contempt he needed to conclude that they had deliberately and in bad faith refused to comply with his order. However, the directors had clearly tried to access funding from the government to pay employees. He extended the court’s oversight of payment of the salaries owed by postponing the matter until 23 July, when the directors must show what further action they have taken to ensure staff were paid. The two unions have employed multiple strategies to force the payment of their members — and won an order last week to seize assets belonging to various subsidiaries of Denel worth R12.7m to secure money owed.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Katharine Child at BusinessLive (paywall access only)
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