SAFTU says NO to shut-down of SAA
The South African Federation of Trade Unions strongly opposes the call by finance minister Tito Mboweni to shut down South African Airways (SAA), on the grounds that is is “loss-making” and “unlikely to sort out the situation”.
Once again, an ANC government minister wants workers to pay the price of mismanagement, wasteful expenditure and rampant corruption in a state-owned enterprise, rather than deal with those board members and executives responsible for its financial collapse.
The impact of closing would be catastrophic. SAA employs 10 017 workers in the airline itself and its subsidiaries - SAA Technical, Mango and Air Chefs. Thousands more jobs among support staff employed at airports would be in jeopardy if the airline were to disappear.
Very few would find new jobs in a country which already has almost ten million people with no work, so tens of thousands more families members of the retrenched airline staff would face poverty.
SAFTU demands that the government renounces any such move, which would make a mockery of its commitment at the Jobs Summit to reduce unemployment.