Trade union Solidarity wants crisis-racked South African Airways (SAA) to be formally placed in ‘business rescue’.
Solidarity chief executive Dirk Hermann said: ‘The SAA is on its way to liquidation with enormous consequences for employees, the South African economy and the taxpayers.
‘Business rescue means that we can limit the damage for all interest groups, create security and save billions of rands of tax money. The longer we take, the worse the consequences will be,’ Hermann said.
The union had planned to lodge a business rescue application against SAA last year, but dropped it after reaching an agreement with former SAA chief executive, Vuyani Jarana.
It decided to revive the application this week as the strike by the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) and the SA Cabin Crew Association (Sacca) deepened the crisis at the national airline.
Solidarity said it had served court papers on SAA and the ministers of finance and public enterprises, Tito Mboweni and Pravin Gordhan.
Negotiations continued yesterday between SAA and Numsa and Sacca, under the auspices of a mediator.
[Photograph: Hansueli Krapf, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25575321]