Strike to ground air travel?

South Africa’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has denied that the air travel industry could be shut down by a Satawu strike. However, striking workers warned that the strike, which began on Thursday, could jeopardise the safety and security of air travellers.

Workers on strike are those who regulate the safety and security of South Africa’s air infrastructure, such as air-worthiness inspectors.

‘This strike will affect the air industry and could eventually lead to a shutdown,” Trudy Sebastiaan, treasurer of the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) warned. ‘We ensure the safety of passengers and in order to ensure safety we need to be at our posts, which we are not.”

The CAA is charged with regulating and enforcing civil aviation safety and security in South Africa. It inspects airports infrastructure such as lighting and navigational aids, ensures that repair and maintenance standards are up to scratch and that aircraft operating in South African airspace are airworthy. The authority also issues pilot licences and investigates accidents

The striking workers are unhappy that annual bonuses were not paid in December, as is the usual practice of the authority. ‘This is a socio-economic issue,” Sebastiaan said. ‘People were expecting their year-end bonuses and were disappointed. There was no consultation with labour on this issue.”

Sebastiaan said that 175 CAA employees were members of Satawu ‘and therefore striking”. But CAA spokesperson Phindiwe Gwebu disagreed with this figure. ‘Yes, there is currently staff on strike, but as I look outside my window to the gate, it is probably no more than 40 people,” she said. Gwebu said Satawu had 156 members in total registered with the authority.

Gwebu said managers had not reported a disruption in services and most inspectors and workers were at their stations. ‘In any case we are running with a skeleton staff due to the holidays and we anticipated that services would be slower,” she said. ‘Satawu is not our only union and they only represented a few members of staff.” She emphasised that passengers had no reason to fear that their safety might be jeopardised.

Christmas bonuses had not been cancelled, she said, but simply delayed.

‘We had decided to link the bonuses to a performance appraisal system as well as paying out bonuses after the current financial year, which made more sense,” she explained. ‘But some workers were unhappy about that.” Managers and union leaders were still in negotiations this week, but Sebastiaan was hopeful that an agreement could be reached soon.