Engineering News reports that according to Solidarity, mismanagement and a lack of political will at national oil company PetroSA are the main reasons for a second retrenchment process instituted within 12 months of a previous process at the company.

According to the trade union, the state-owned enterprise informed its employees and unions in December 2021 that it wanted to reduce its workforce from 1,168 to about 318 members of staff by retrenching 850 employees. The consultation process started in mid-January under the auspices of the CCMA. Solidarity general secretary Gideon du Plessis said that, from an operational perspective, mismanagement by PetroSA’s executives “has clearly been replicated in their total blundering and negligence” in handling the retrenchment process. “The Section 189 retrenchment notice and business plan, which staff members and unions received, are fraught with technical errors and procedural flaws. As a result, the first CCMA consultation session focused only on the procedural flaws and did not deal with substantive matters at all,” Du Plessis reported. He advised that litigation, arising from these flaws, was a possibility. According to Solidarity, even in the run-up to the retrenchment process, PetroSA dealt with the applications for voluntary severance packages in an incompetent manner. It is Solidarity’s contention that PetroSA’s sustainability can easily be improved, and all jobs can be retained. “Solidarity will fight the retrenchments, but through constructive proposals (will) seek to prevent PetroSA from following the same path Denel and many other state institutions went,” Du Plessis noted. The follow-up session at the CCMA is scheduled for 1 February 2022.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard at Engineering News
• Read Solidarity’s press statement on this matter at Solidarity News

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