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An employee of Jetworx, who was a member of Solidarity, committed suicide after he had been retrenched by the company. Solidarity is also concerned about the fate of the other employees of Jetworx, former operating subsidiary and maintenance arm of 1time Holdings, following the announcement that the company would be applying for provisional liquidation today.
 
1time Holdings placed Jetworx and its other operating subsidiary, 1time Airline, under business rescue in August last year. Johan Kruger, Solidarity’s spokesperson, says a subsidiary of the American Industrial Acquisition Corporation (AIAC) had agreed earlier this year to buy all of Jetworx’s issued shares. The transaction with the AIAC was finalised on 6 February. According to Kruger, Jetworx had already, before being placed under business rescue, retrenched about 200 of its estimated 400 employees. Kruger says the Solidarity member who committed suicide had been among the 200 employees who were retrenched. ‘Most of the employees who were retrenched, have not received their retrenchment packages yet and as a result they are under immense financial pressure. Solidarity always insists that employers comply with the fixed period for the payment of retrenchment packages, offer support regarding claims for unemployment insurance and offer employees access to counselling.’
 
Kruger says Solidarity is very concerned about Jetworx’s remaining employees. ‘The shareholder (AIAC) unfortunately neglected to provide Jetworx with financing as it is required to do and the company’s financial position weakened further. Jetworx asked for around R3 million from the AIAC to pay its employees and to keep the company operational. However, the AIAC did not provide the money to Jetworx and the company is therefore unable to pay its suppliers and employees. As a result, instruction was given to lodge an application to have the company provisionally liquidated. Jetworx’s employees have not received their full salaries for the past seven months and they will now be under even more pressure.’