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The Democratic Alliance (DA) welcomes the Labour Court ruling which rejects the application made by the National Union of Metalworkers (NUM) and the South African Cabin Crew Association (SACCA), to stop the South African Airways (SAA) Business Rescue Practitioners, Les Matuson and Siviwe Dongwana, from retrenching staff.

There is general consensus that SAA is overstaffed by at least 30% and with passengers abandoning SAA in droves, the overstaffing is probably much, much higher. There is absolutely no way that SAA can be rescued, if at all, without massive staff retrenchments.

The unions behaviour does not indicate their care of the welfare of workers, otherwise they would allow the SAA business rescue process to continue to save the airline. It was absurd for NUM and SACCA to have been under the impression that taxpayer bailouts would continue to be used to pour money into SAA to pay the bloated staff compliment.

The unions and Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, must now remove themselves from this process and allow the SAA business rescue practitioners to continue with their work unhindered.

Issued by DA