South African Airways has announced that workers have elected to start ‘work-to-rule’ industrial action on Wednesday, the 19th of March 2025.
This follows dissatisfaction from the SAA Pilots Association (SAAPA) and National Transport Movement (NTM) Pilot Forum regarding the airline’s final offer in wage negotiations.
As reported by Business Tech, work-to-rule is a form of industrial action where employees strictly stick to official working rules and hours in a bid to reduce output and decrease efficiency.
Also known as a go-slow, the form of industrial action is used to keep production pressure on employers.
According to Algoa FM, Professor John Lamola, who is the SAA Group CEO shared that they have implemented strong contingency measures in order to mitigate the industrial action’s impact.
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Although SAA anticipates that services will remain uninterrupted, real-time updates on flight statuses will also be provided.
‘Our priority is to resolve outstanding issues collaboratively while maintaining service continuity and minimizing inconvenience to our valued customers, while upholding the highest safety and operational reliability standards,’ he said.
SAA further expressed that it deems its final offer to the associations as a fair one, given the group’s financial pressures and challenging operating environment.
The group is offering a 3-year salary increase agreement, while also introducing a longevity salary progression model for pilots.
The total package amounts to a 7.3% increase in 2025, and a 7.6% increase in 2026 and 2027.
As part of the negotiations which began in May 2024, SAA also agreed to SAAPA’s proposals on rostering, after it determined that it did not compromise the scheduling of pilots or SAA’s route schedule.
The new rostering will be effective from the 1st of May 2025.
SAA has since expressed that negotiations with the worker associations will continue.
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