JOHANNESBURG - Trade union Solidarity on Tuesday celebrated its legal victory against state-owned Denel after the high court ordered the financially struggling arms maker to pay over the unemployment insurance and taxes deducted from employees’ salaries over several months.
"It is a major victory for Solidarity and the Denel employees," the head of Solidarity’s legal services Anton van der Bijl said. "However, it is regrettable that we had to go to court just to draw Denel’s attention to payments that it should have made a while ago."
Solidarity filed an urgent application after Denel said it was only able to pay a certain portion of its employees’ salaries for June and July.
In addition, statutory compulsory payments such as paye-as-you-earn, unemployment insurance fund and a skills development levy were indicated on salary slips, but not paid over.
On Tuesday, Solidarity said it was still concerned about Denel’s continued survival.
It said the steps taken against Denel formed part of a greater tax protest campaign including at least six legal actions against state-owned enterprises and "tax plunderers".