SAA strike drags on

29 Jan 2013

The strike by the National Transport Movement (NTM) at South African Airways (SAA) will continue for a 12th day as the union verifies about 260 new membership forms with the assistance of a commissioner from the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA).

The strike comes after the NTM failed to be recognised as a union at the airline despite the CCMA recommending last year that SAA recognises it. NTM was formed in the middle of last year as a breakaway of the SA Transport and Allied Workers Union, and affiliate of the Congress of South African Trade Unions.

"The strike is continuing while the verification is going on," Liver Mngomezulu, the deputy secretary general of the NTM, said yesterday. SAA maintained that the stay away was not affecting operations.

Mngomezulu rejected SAA's claims that the strike has not hurt the airline. "On Friday (25 January) they were begging us to withdraw the strike because it is affecting their operations and we said to them that 'in the media you are saying something else'. They said to us 'forget about what you read in the media'."

SAA spokesman Tlali Tlali said support for the strike was "fizzling out" with about 20 people on strike.

"Management has never begged NTM to call off the strike. If anything, we engaged with them with good intentions aimed at finding a common ground. That is hardly an act of begging," he said.

A second strike by NTM at the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa), which operates the commuter train service Metrorail, continued yesterday (28 January), Mngomezulu said.

Prasa spokesman Moffet Mofokeng, said the strike was not national and attendance was low, with only 55 people not pitching up for work.

NTM did not meet the threshold required for recognition at the rail agency which employs about 15,000 people, Mofokeng said.

Prasa won an order from the labour court on Saturday (26 January) to interdict NTM's members from barricading Prasa's premises and ordered NTM not to destroy Prasa property or intimidate non-striking employees, Mofokeng said.

Mngomezulu said NTM members had been "harassed and persecuted by Prasa protection services and we have about four members who have been assaulted." They have opened a criminal case against the guards.

Source: Sapa via I-Net Bridge

Source: I-Net Bridge

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