The South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu) on Wednesday vowed to counter a South African Airways restructuring plan, saying management had lied to it and that ”the laws of the jungle shall now apply”.
The union issued a statement after the airline’s chief executive, Khaya Ngqula, told media on Wednesday that it was essential to revise work packages that were a legacy of the national carrier’s past.
”SAA is aiming to save R638-million through this process,” Ngqula told a press conference.
Satawu said in a subsequent statement that ”a notice issued on 5/9/07 with regard to the restructuring processes, criterion and timeframes will be seriously countered by Satawu in the CCMA [Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration] facilitation intended to manage the consultation.
”We reaffirm our confidence in the CCMA facilitation including the session scheduled for 11 September 2007.”
Satawu was ”extremely angry” at what transpired at a meeting with the SAA executive team on Wednesday which resulted in ”bad faith discussion, arrogance and undermining of labour”.
The union questioned SAA management’s intention to make public announcements on a new section 189 notice intended to ”forcefully retrench” 2 232 employees.
The union added, ”It is regrettable to state that management lied to us by not producing the draft press release as the CEO and the HR executive had already briefed the media at 12.30pm whilst we were conducting an engagement under false pretences.
”This we discovered by the media contacting us to make comment on the SAA press statement whilst still in the meeting.
The battle lines had been drawn and ”the laws of the jungle shall now apply as no union worth its salt can accept such disrespect”, the Satawu statement said. – Sapa