The SA Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union (Saccawu) is set to ramp up its indefinite strike at struggling retail giant Massmart by calling for a consumer boycott of the company’s 413 stores across the country from Monday.
Sithembele Tshwete, the union’s spokesperson told Business Day on Sunday that Saccawu will intensify the industrial action from Monday, in an effort to get management to table a revised wage offer and address some of the grievances the union has raised.
“On Monday, we will be calling on all citizens to not buy from Massmart stores, we are calling for a consumer boycott. We are asking our brothers and sisters to not cross the picket lines because we are fighting a company that is hell-bent on treating workers as commodities,” he said.
“The strike continues because the employer has not come back to the negotiating table. The strike is about the dignity of workers. This company is paying workers less than the minimum wage of R4,200.”
Saccawu, which claims to have about 20,000 of Massmart’s 45,000-strong workforce, embarked on an indefinite strike from Friday in support of its demand for a R500 increase across the board, rejecting management’s proposal of R320. The union is also disputing alleged unilateral restructuring and changes to terms and conditions of employment affecting the group's customer relation officers.
In a strike update on Sunday, Massmart said staff attendance at its stores over the weekend "was even higher than Friday and picketing activity was generally subdued".
"We estimate that less than 23% of Saccawu membership participated in the strike action on Friday with further reduction to around 11% over the weekend. For example, strike participation at Builders, where Saccawu has 2,500 members, dropped from 640 to 250 staff members. All estimates are based on store absenteeism," the company said in a statement.
"Indifferent support for this strike does bring into question the membership mandate that Saccawu leadership claims to have for the current action which is occurring at a time when families generally have higher household expenses."
The group noted that the union leadership has reached out to Massmart towards resolving the strike, "which is a constructive development".
Saccawu is an affiliate of labour federation Cosatu. Cosatu national spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said the federation supported the industrial action. “The federation is calling on all South African consumers to support this legitimate struggle for workers in defence of their rights by boycotting Massmart stores effective from Monday,” said Pamla.
“This company is wreaking havoc on the workers and their livelihoods, and its tactics are anti-worker and anti-poor. The federation supports its affiliated union Saccawu in its pushback campaign against this onslaught directed at workers. We intend to work with them to expand our mobilisation by engaging with other federations and progressive mass-based organisations and civil society structures to fight this onslaught against workers.”
Massmart, owned by Walmart, the largest company in the world by revenue, has been struggling to shake off the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and the associated lockdown restrictions that saw it lose billions due to government-imposed bans on alcohol sales.
The July unrest in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng brought more setbacks for the group — which is in the middle of a turnaround attempt to fix years of underperformance — when two of its warehouses were looted and one razed, with 43 stores damaged.
The looting, arson and store closures during the civil unrest cost the owner of Game, Makro and Builders Warehouse R2.5bn, and it also had to meet a R650m insurance shortfall.
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