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On Wednesday, the Solidarity Research Institute (SRI) released a report on the mental and financial condition of Denel employees.
This followed Solidarity having been embroiled in a legal battle with Denel for two years to get the state-owned enterprise to pay the R90 million in salaries owed to the trade union’s members. According to Solidarity, the report draws a clear line between the fatal mismanagement of Denel and the tangible impact it has had on ordinary people. Denel employees have had to try and survive with partial or no salary payments respectively for more than two years. “Denel’s situation is not only catastrophic from a financial point of view, but the entity as a whole went through a process of destruction. The consequences thereof are explicitly shown in the report. The financial impact on employees may be calculable, but one will never be able to calculate the emotional and mental impact it had on employees,” said Nicolien Welthagen, Research Psychologist at the SRI. “Jobs provide meaning, security and an opportunity to live a life of purpose. Denel employees are not only deprived of these things, but also of compensation for the work they do,” she pointed out. “As heart-wrenching as it may be that Denel finds itself in a desperate situation as a whole, it is worse when you think of the people who have lost their homes and their vehicles, with the report making it clear that some have already contemplated suicide as the way out of their situation,” Welthagen lamented.
- Read Solidarity’s press statement regarding the above and access the full report at Politicsweb
- Lees ook, Denel se aftakeling laat werkers gebroke, by Maroela Media
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