The South African Communist Party (SACP) says it is outraged by media reports that South African Airways (SAA), the state airline, is planning to retrench close to 1Â 000 workers by December 2007.
In a statement on Monday, the SACP — which is in alliance with the ruling African National Congress — said it had “a number of concerns about these planned retrenchments”.
Spokesperson Malesela Maleka said: “First this ran directly counter to the government’s commitment to halve unemployment by 2014.
“Second, we would have expected that all state-owned enterprises would do all to contribute to this achievement. Third, we are concerned about the practice of first announcing plans to retrench workers and only after that seeking to engage unions. This is a bad labour-relations practice and should be strongly condemned.
“It also cannot be that senior management continue to be rewarded millions of rands in bonuses and perks, including travel packages, whilst workers are expected to sacrifice their jobs and livelihoods.”
“For a parastatal, the first [thing] that should be explored is how to cut back on these luxurious remuneration packages and perks, even before considering retrenching. This demonstrates the fact that state-owned enterprises are practically no different to private capitalist entities. Of even more serious concern is that workers, especially black workers, are still treated as dispensable entities with no right to quality jobs.”
The SACP called on Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin — a member of the party — “to urgently intervene in this matter and ensure that we save workers’ jobs, if this is to be the age of hope not only for the elite but for the workers and the poor as well”.
“We will engage the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union [Satawu] and various other stakeholders, and the SACP pledges its full support to whatever action that Satawu and the Congress of SA Trade Unions might take to fight this issue,” said Maleka. — I-Net Bridge