The SA Commercial Catering and Allied Workers Union (Saccawu) is set to embark on a 10-day strike at Massmart-owned Makro stores across the country from Friday in a bid to force the company to accede to its demand for higher wages.
Saccawu, an affiliate of labour federation Cosatu, is demanding an across-the-board pay increase of either R900 or 12%, whichever is greater; a minimum wage of R8,000 a month; a R100 uniform allowance; a moratorium on retrenchments; 13th cheques to be made separate from December salaries; an improved commission for salespersons; and an increase in working hours from 160 to 195 a month.
“The strike action at all Makro stores will resume from March 24 and will continue up until April 2. On Friday, March 24, Saccawu will be holding nationwide marches to various Makro stores to hand over [a] memorandum of demands,” Saccawu spokesperson Sithembele Tshwete said.
“The main march will be held in Pretoria, where the memorandum will be handed over to [the] Makro store at Wonderboom. Civil society organisations in SA and international trade union federations have been galvanised to rally behind Saccawu and boycott all Walmart/Makro products during this period.”
On Thursday, Massmart senior vice-president of corporate affairs Brian Leroni said: “We have already deployed outsourced retail staff to those stores that may be affected by the strike action that has been announced by Saccawu and fully anticipate that our Makro stores will continue to operate without interruption.”
He said the group’s research has revealed little support for the strike among Saccawu members: “Evidence supporting this is that there has been a massive spike in resignations from the union since the strike action was announced. This is in addition to the more than approximately 1,200 Makro employees who have resigned from the union in order to accept the company’s wage offer.”
Leroni said Saccawu’s demand for a “12% increase and 20% commission on sales is quite clearly unrealistic and is a direct contradiction to the fact that Saccawu accepted the company offer at our Game and Builders stores”.
Saccawu embarked on a strike in December 2022 in support of its demands, but the company refused to increase its offer of a 4.5% pay increase.
On March 15, the International Trade Union Confederation (Ituc), which represents 200-million workers in 168 countries including SA, wrote to Massmart demanding that it reinstate 400 workers dismissed after the December strike.
In a letter to Massmart CEO Jonathan Molapo, Ituc deputy general secretary Owen Tudor said the confederation was deeply concerned that the company, owned by US retail giant Walmart, had elected to bypass SA laws on dispute settlement and resorted to “victimising workers for exercising their rights to freedom of association and expression”.
“We demand that you engage with our affiliate Cosatu in the resolution of this dispute, in line with their letter of March 2 2023, and that you unconditionally reinstate all the 400 dismissed workers,” Tudor wrote.
Leroni, however, said the employees were dismissed for their “unlawful behaviour”, which he said was dangerous to customers and staff, and included “intimidating and preventing customers from accessing Makro stores”.
Leroni has said that during the strike Makro repeatedly approached Saccawu to help by asking their members to stop “their unlawful behaviour”. Saccawu leadership ignored these repeated requests for assistance, he said.
Saccawu was challenging the “unfair dismissals” and suspensions at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration and was waiting for a date, Tshwete said.
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