Employees affiliated with the SA Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU) at South African Airways' (SA) MRO unit, SAA Technical, have gone on strike over a requested 12% wage increase. According to a statement by the union, the strike will go on until their demands are met.
The union says the strike is as a result of stalled wage negotiations with SAA Technical claiming that management had unilaterally implemented a 6.5% wage increase without consulting them.
"Our deadlock with the employer centred around a 6.5% offer by them while we compromised our demands by moving from 12% to a 6.5% plus a 0.4% once off payment which is less than ZAR5million in total cost. The employer refused on that and went further to implement the 6.5% unilaterally."
SATAWU stated the following flight services would "likely" be affected with the onset of the strike:
Domestic:
- SAA (SA)
- mango (JE)
- SAA Cargo
- kulula (MN)
International:
- British Airways (BA)
- Kenya Airways (KQ)
- Air Zimbabwe (UM)
- TAAG Angolan Airlines (DT)
- Qantas (QF)
- Turkish Airlines (TK)
- Qatar Airways (QR)
- Cargolux (CV)
- Air Mauritius (MK)
- RwandAir (WB)
While further talks are understood to have resumed this morning, union members did picket outside Johannesburg's OR Tambo International Airport.
SAA spokesperson Tlali Tlali said as far as he knew, numerous flights had taken off and landed at the airport but noted that the airline did have contingency plans in place.