Since the grounding of 200 flights over pay and other conditions on Friday, the South African Airways (SAA) and its striking workers met on Saturday to find a solution to get the planes back in the air again.
The Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), a local dispute resolution body, is chairing the meeting — whose duration has not been revealed — between the two sides in a strike that’s costing millions daily to both country and company.
The SAA strike is not only costing money this country, however.
But there have been complaints from South Africa’s neighbours as well who rely on the world class airliner to do business with the Rainbow Nation and other African states.
While the workers are demanding an 8 percent wage increase, the cash-strapped SAA’s management said it can afford only a 5.9 percent hike in pay.
In addition, the SAA’s intention to dismiss 1,000 workers from its payroll has angered the staffers, with the workers blaming the airline’s mismanagement and alleged corruption in its procurement procedures for milking the company to its knees.
A spokeswoman for the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), Phakamile Hlubi Majola, said the workers also want SAA to commit to bringing costly outsourced services back to the airline, which are blowing up a substantial hole in SAA’s budget.
“Otherwise we’ll be right back here six months from now, with them saying they’ve got no money,” she said, adding the unions could not move on other demands before the outsourcing problem is met.
So far, the two sides have been blaming each other for the intransigence in moving forward to identify a solution to ending the strike which so far sees no end as the strike continues.
NM/as/APA