BL Premium reports that the battle between state-owned arms manufacturer Denel and trade union Solidarity over the company’s nonpayment of salaries is set to continue in the Labour Court next week after Denel continuously failed to meet its contractual obligations to employees.

In September 2021, after a settlement agreement between Denel and the trade union, the company apparently made partial payment of R12.7m in salaries and employee benefits unpaid for the months of April to July 2020. However, Solidarity says the cash-strapped Denel has failed to pay about R91m in outstanding salaries from August 2020 to now. Should the court rule in its favour, the union wants the outstanding payments to be made within 10 days of the granting of the order. The amounts owed are for Solidarity members in four Denel divisions, namely Denel Corporate Office, Denel Dynamics, Denel Land Systems and Denel PMP, and exclude the amounts owed to employees at Overberg Test Range and Denel Vehicle Systems. Denel, which has not opposed Solidarity’s latest court application, has failed to release its annual results for 2021, prompting the JSE to suspend the company’s bonds from the local bourse. Unions, including Solidarity, Uasa and the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa), have all previously taken the arms manufacturer to court over the nonpayment of salaries.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Thando Maeko and Karl Gernetzky at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)

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