SATAWU: airport privatisation will lead to job losses
Satawu threatens to strike if the privatisation of Gateway Airports Authority Limited is implemented
POLOKWANE – The planned privatisation of the Gateway Airports Authority Limited (GAAL) has the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) says this will lead to many employees losing their jobs.
This follows after government announced the privatisation of the airport in an effort to make it more profitable by implementing a turnaround strategy. The strategy will turn the airport into a cargo hub and secure more affordable airlines. Satawu Provincial Secretary, Paul Nephawe, said the retrenchment of employees is such cases is inevitable.
“Even though GAAL said this won’t happen, we feel they can turn around a few months down the line and retrench people,” he said. “We see this happen all the time. They will start with the privatisation of the cleaners and security guards and soon move on to the rest of the employees,” Nephawe said. GAAL Executive Manager of Marketing and Public Relations, Oupa Mamabolo, said Satawu members should rest assured their jobs will be safe.
“We have a turnaround strategy we will discuss with Satawu and the economic cluster regarding the airport,” Mamabolo explained.
According to Mamabolo, the strategy includes securing affordable airlines and making use of the land available to them to plan an aerotropolis. An aerotropolis is a metropolitan subregion where the layout, infrastructure, and economy are centered on an airport which serves as a multimodal “airport city” commercial core. It is similar in form to a traditional metropolis which contains a central city commercial core and commuter-linked suburbs.
Mamabolo said even though they will continue to engage and listen to Satawu, they reject the allegations made by Satawu in their statement, which include allegations of corruption and not following proper employment equity procedures.
“We plead with government not to privatise GAAL. If our plea is not addressed, we plan to start picketing and ask our legal team to advise us on a way forward in the matter,” Nephawe concluded.
vella@nmgroup.co.za
