The one-day strike by South African Airways (SAA) cabin crew staff over meal allowances cost the troubled national carrier about R32-million due to the cancellation of flights.
Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba revealed that the strike by cabin crew led by the SA Cabin Crew Association (Sacca) last month caused SAA financial losses amounting to R31.8-million.
Gigaba was responding to questions by DA MP Malcolm Figg.
Sacca members went on strike over meal allowances but SAA successfully approached the Labour Court to interdict the strike action.
SAA had told the Labour Court that the strike cost the state-owned airline about R25-million.
Sacca deputy president Christopher Shabangu told Sowetan that although the main issue of the dispute was meal allowances, the association was tackling a bigger one - corruption.
"There's dissatisfaction with corruption. SAA is a viable airline making profits. Money comes in but it's stolen by the buckets," Shabangu said.
SAA has projected losses of about R4.5-billion for the financial year ended in March and R853-million for 2017-18.
Shabangu said the meal allowances dispute was still unresolved and that yesterday Sacca met SAA representatives at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) in an attempt to resolve it.
However, there was still no progress and the parties will go into conciliation at the end of this month.
Shabangu said Sacca members had not been informed about the possibility of SAA deducting their salaries to recoup the losses suffered due to the unprotected strike.
Last month's strike followed protracted negotiations over SAA's decision to revise meal allowances to R250 per day.
The dispute was laid bare in papers filed at the Labour Court when SAA sought to interdict the strike.
In June, the airline notified unions representing its employees, including Sacca, that meal allowances were an operational issue that needed to be reviewed.
Three months later Sacca referred SAA's refusal to bargain to the CCMA, saying the airline did not want to negotiate an increase in meal allowances.
Earlier this year, Sacca referred another dispute to the CCMA, telling the commission that "the employer party had refused to pay meal allowance[s] for more than seven years".
Sacca was demanding daily meal allowances of US$165 (about R2 100) per day.
SAA spokesman Tlali Tlali did not respond to questions he asked to be e-mailed to him yesterday.
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