The South African Cabin Crew Association (SACCA) and the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) have issued a statement dealing with their submissions in the hearings by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) on the suffering they say they have endured at the hands of SA Express and its single shareholder, the DPE.
The unions allege that Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, is trampling on the human rights and dignity of workers at SAX.
The commission’s hearings in Kempton Park on April 20 heard submissions on the circumstances surrounding the fact that workers at SA Express were not paid their salaries from the date SAX was placed under business rescue in February 2020.
Government is the shareholder of SAX, a state-owned enterprise (SOE).
The statement points out that the business rescue occurred before the COVID-19 lockdown and that, since that day, workers have not received a cent. The statement says the workers have “suffered unbearably” as a result, and it claims they lost assets, their children were kicked out of school and they lost their homes.
Currently SAX is under provisional liquidation.
“The actions of the DPE under the leadership of Pravin Gordhan the minister, have had a devastating impact on workers…. DPE knew about their pain and simply did not care.”
The unions claim that even though the airline was under lockdown and also under business rescue, there were avenues that the DPE could have explored to cushion workers to prevent them from suffering, but the DPE failed to do so.
The statement says the DPE did not co-operate with the workers in arranging for them to be placed on the Training Lay-Off Scheme with the Transport and Education and Training Authority (TETA). “This would have allowed workers to earn 75% of their salary whilst undergoing training. NUMSA and SACCA negotiated this arrangement with the TETA and with the CCMA. What was needed was co-operation from the DPE. However, they (the DPE) refused to explore this option.”
The unions also allege that it is “suspicious” that an SOE, a state asset, is being disposed of through liquidation, without Minister Gordhan consulting parliament or the public and they question why the process to find a buyer for SA Express is shrouded in mystery. “All meetings on this process have been held in secret and the DPE and the minister will not explain themselves to anyone on this process,” alleges the statement.
The unions claim that the DPE has said it rejected several buyers because those buyers did not have enough money to purchase the airline. Yet, the DPE also says a final valuation for the airline is still outstanding.
“How can they reject potential buyers when they do not even know how much the airline is worth? Which buyers were rejected and why? These are all questions that DPE and the minister will not answer,” says the statement from the unions.
The statement from NUMSA and SACCA claims that 3 200 jobs have been lost at SAA, 1 300 at SAX, 1 800 at SAA Technical and 703 at Mango. It also claims that 3 137 jobs are on the line at Denel.
NUMSA and SACCA are calling on the SAHRC to act on its mandate and to do the work of holding Minister Gordhan to account for trampling on the human rights and dignity of workers at SAX.
The SAHRC is due to convene a new round of hearings in two weeks’ time.
