NUMSA and SACCA urge members not to sign VSPs until funding has been confirmed
27 August 2020
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) and the South African Cabin Crew Association (SACCA) have urged all their members not to sign the Voluntary Severance Package (VSP) Termination agreement which was sent out by SAA management, until funding for the VSP has been confirmed. Workers at SAA are being encouraged to sign the agreements and the deadline has been set for the 2nd of September 2020.
Prior to the issuing of VSP’s the DPE put us under enormous pressure and they publicly attacked us for delaying the process. They told workers that they had budgeted R2.2 billion for VSP’s and they pushed us into agreeing. Now that they must deliver, they still cannot confirm the funding for VSPs. What kind of game is this that they are playing? It seems they are gambling with our members lives and we condemn this in the strongest terms. We have been clear to our members that they must not sign for VSP’s until such a time that DPE guarantees funding. The department had the audacity to call us ‘rogue’ for not encouraging employees to sign, and now they are delaying – this is outrageous an unacceptable!
We are concerned that if workers sign these agreements without any confirmation of funding, they will be effectively terminating their relationship with the employer, with no guarantee of income. We have good reason to be concerned given that SAA employees have not received any salary for the last four months, they have been depending on the TERS relief scheme which does not cover their salaries in full. We have demanded that SAA pay employees outstanding salaries, and they are passing the buck. They refuse to take responsibility for non-payment claiming that the Business Rescue Practitioners and the Department of Public Enterprises are responsible for paying salaries. They are throwing workers under the bus, and running away from their legal obligations.
The BRPs were paid their fees, which was in excess of R30 million of tax payer monies. We reject the explanations from SAA management about failure to pay salaries. We have advised our attorneys of the situation and we intend to take legal action against SAA for failing to uphold its legal obligations to pay salaries and benefits.
The SAA management has said in bilateral engagements with us that they want to lower the start-up number of employees from 1000 to just under 400 employees, and it seems they are not committed to the Social Plan. We want to make it clear that we will not tolerate any deviation from the adopted business rescue plan which clearly states that SAA will have a start-up number of 1000 employees and 1000 employees on the Training Lay Off scheme.
If SAA has any chance of survival the entire board and executive must be replaced because they drove the airline into the ground. We will not tolerate any of these current board members or executives continuing to occupy positions in the ‘new’ SAA as this will doom the airline to fail before it has even had a chance to take off.
Issued by NUMSA and SACCA, 27 August 2020
