[ad_1]
Comair expects to start flying again in December if a proposed business rescue plan is accepted. (Supplied)
- The Sindicato Nacional de Metalúrmicos de SA is heading to court in an attempt to force Comair to pay its members’ outstanding salaries and health care contributions.
- Comair expects to start flying again in December if a proposed business rescue plan is accepted.
- Comair Rescue Practitioners have accepted a proposal from the Comair Rescue Consortium (formerly known as the Moritz Consortium) as their preferred offer to move the group forward.
The SA National Metalworkers Union (NUMSA) is addressing the Johannesburg Labor Court in an attempt to force JSE-listed Comair and its rescue professionals Shaun Collyer and Richard Ferguson to pay outstanding wages and health care contributions from its members.
Comair expects to start flying again in December if a proposed business rescue plan, released just before midnight Wednesday night, is accepted. It operates its own low-cost airline Kulula.com, as well as British Airways in South Africa under a license agreement.
Comair Rescue Practitioners have accepted a proposal from the Comair Rescue Consortium (formerly known as the Moritz Consortium) as their preferred offer to move the group forward. In terms of the consortium’s offer, all staff medical contributions will be paid from August to November. Comair’s creditors have to decide on September 18 whether or not to accept the bailout plan.
If all goes according to plan, NUMSA expects your request to be heard urgently on Wednesday, September 9.
According to the union, the airline and its rescue professionals are acting illegally by failing to pay wages since June 1, 2020 and their failure “or threatened default” to pay the airline’s full health care contributions as of August 1 or September 1 of this year.
NUMSA intends to petition the Labor Court to order the airline and its rescue professionals to take urgent action to ensure that all health care benefits are restored and that all health care contributions with respect to union members are pay in full and stay paid. in full for the duration of the business rescue procedure.
The union also wants the court to order its members’ pending compensation to be paid within seven days.
NUMSA alleges that the matter is urgent due to injustice because its members have not received the payment of salaries and health care premiums.
According to NUMSA, the airline and rescue professionals claim that they are not required to remunerate employees, and furthermore, due to the airline’s current financial difficulties, they are unable to remunerate employees.
Comair employed about 2,086 people in March 2020, but some of them have since left, according to NUMSA. After the shutdown, Comair suspended operations and the employees subsequently received no wages other than TERS payments.
NUMSA claims that Comair is in breach of its contractual and legal obligations to its employees.
A meeting on September 1 to try to resolve the issues failed, leading to NUMSA’s decision to go to the Labor Court for redress.
“It is simply unsustainable that employees and their dependents are not covered by medical assistance and there is no certainty how long this interim period will last and indeed whether this will not become a permanent scenario,” said NUMSA’s secretary. General Irvin Jim says in his affidavit, which supports the request.
In their view, the recently released proposed rescue plan indicates that options were available to meet obligations to employees and comply with the law.
