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Cabin crew are returning to work at a growing pace as the one-week wage strike at SAA begins to bite with the imposition of a strict no-work, no-pay policy.

“For Wednesday and Thursday, we had 70 cabin crew returning to work. The quantification of actual losses (to workers of wages) will be worked out once the strike has ended. What is clear is that a quarter of one’s salary is not an insignificant amount of money,” SAA spokesman Tlali Tlali said. 

SAA resumed some operations this week and it announced yesterday that it would not be able to make payroll as the strike bites revenues — board member Martin Kingston said earlier in the week that the airline was losing some R50m a day due to the strike.

Earlier in the week, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan said no further bailouts could be expected from the government. Numsa has led the strike and is in alliance with the SA Cabin Crew Association, but the numbers returning suggest the alliance was fraying. Numsa announced that a secondary strike would be called at Air Chefs, the airline catering company owned by SAA. 

But airlines have shifted away from Air Chefs, meaning that the secondary strike would not have extended the aviation showdown and slowdown significantly. “SAA is its biggest client,” said Tlali. Its only other clients are Swiss International, SA Express, Mango, Proflight Zambia (in Durban and Johannesburg) and BA in Durban. Neither Comair nor FlySafair, the major domestic competitor airlines to SAA, use Air Chefs. Comair is in a long-standing wage dispute with Numsa and a strike was narrowly averted in April when the airline interdicted the strike. There has not yet been a strike ballot at Comair, so there is no immediate threat of a strike although the airline’s schedules were impacted by the strike at SAA Technical which still services its aircraft. 

Numsa does not have a recognition agreement in place for cabin crew but it does have one for ground crew at Comair. The airline has contingency plans in place to keep flying should Numsa ballot successfully for a strike, it said in a statement.

“Comair anticipates to remain fully operational, should its ground and/or cabin crew choose to exercise their right to strike. However, the operations may become pressurised if industrial action continues for some time,” said a Comair spokesperson.

λ SAA and unions the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa and the South African Cabin Crew Association reached an agreement, the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration announced yesterday. 

Following an eight-day strike that cost the airline some R50m per day, resulted in cancelled flights and left employees fearing financial losses from a no-work no-pay policy, the CCMA announced that the wage dispute had been resolved.

“The CCMA is pleased to announce that the wage dispute between South African Airways (SAA) and the unions SACCA and NUMSA, has been resolved. The mediated process that was re-convened on Wednesday, 20 November 2019, resulted in an agreement being signed at midday today, 22 November 2019,” it said.

The details of the deal were not immediately announced. In a statement, SAA later confirmed that the parties agreed to an increase of 5.9% on total cost of employment retrospective to 1 April 2019, which will be paid in the February 2020 payroll. This would be subject to availability of funding, SAA said. 

The back payment for the first six months would be paid in March 2020, with the remaining four months paid in April 2020. 

The salary increase and back pay would be subject to funds being obtained by SAA for such purposes and being available during February 2020, March 2020 and April 2020, “as the case may be”, the national carrier added. 

Additionally, SAA said, the Section 189a retrenchment process would be deferred to January 2020, but the deferment would only apply to the bargaining unit. The process would continue for SAA management, with the next consultation scheduled for November 25. — Sapa