Trade union Numsa and the South African Cabin Crew Association (Sacca) said that they had reached yet another disappointing compromise with SAA’s business rescue practitioners and lenders.
The parties on Wednesday held further talks around the airline’s restructuring plans.
SAA is bleeding and in the latest efforts to keep operations running, it received R3.5 million in emergency funding from the Development Bank of Southern Africa.
SAA’s business rescue practitioners were not backing down on their conditions, meaning unions may have to make a number of concessions.
Numsa’s Phakamile Hlubi-Majola said that some of the conditions included the retrenchment of over 900 workers to help save the airline.
Hlubi-Majola said that this was an unacceptable compromise.
“They were saying: ‘If you guys want funding, you must agree that more than 944 of you must be retrenched and you must agree that the retrenchments happen outside of a Section 189 consultation process.'”
She said that the airline’s procurement contracts must also be investigated.
“SAA spends more than R25 billion per year on procurement. There are nine forensic reports that have exposed this procurement to be largely corrupt and an example of rampant mismanagement.”
All parties are expected to reconvene soon.