Numsa head to court to stop SAA Technical retrenchments
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) says it is preparing to challenge termination notices issued by South African Airways Technical (SAAT) to workers.
The union says SAAT plans to retrench 75% of its staff.
NUMSA spokesperson Phakamile Hlubi-Majola says the Council for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) suspended the retrenchment process in July.
This was due to SAAT management failing to commit to how it planned to finance the packages for those workers who were to be retrenched.
However, she says the company now plans to go ahead with termination notices.
“SAAT was initially contemplating retrenching 1443 staff in order to retain only 857 people. But they increased the proposed number of job cuts to 1850.
We rejected this proposal because we felt they had provided no rationale. However, they are imposing the decision and from the 18th of October they issued termination letters to staff. For some workers these notices will come into effect on the 18th of November,” says Hlubi-Majola.
Numsa says SAAT did not follow the proper processes.
“The management of SAAT is being opportunistic. They did not follow the proper process when they announced that they were going to cut more jobs. Given that they increased the number of retrenchments, SAAT should have issued a fresh section 189 notice, or through the CCMA, they should have started a new round of consultations because the rationale has changed. We wrote to the SAAT management expressing our concerns, but they continued with the termination process,” adds Hlubi-Majola.
The union is consulting an attorney to challenge the termination letters.
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