The General Industries Workers Union of SA (Giwusa) has called on dairy company Clover to resume negotiations that could result in about 700 workers retrenched in 2021 being reinstated.
The workers were retrenched when Clover was taken over by the Milco consortium, led by Central Bottling Company (CBC).
Clover was subsequently delisted from the JSE after the takeover. Giwusa and the Food and Allied Workers Union (Fawu), both affiliates of the SA Federation of Trade Unions, fought the restructuring, approached the courts and embarked on protracted strikes.
Giwusa president Mametlwe Sebei said on Tuesday they wanted the “immediate and unconditional reinstatement of all workers dismissed during the Milco restructuring”.
The other demands include the following:
- The nationalisation of Clover under workers’ and community control to ensure its operation serves human need to ensure affordable dairy products and nutrition, not private profit.
- The reopening of all five closed factories to resuscitate local economies.
- A radical reduction of the working week with no loss of pay to create thousands of new jobs for the unemployed youth in the townships and communities devastated by their closures.
In a letter to Fawu and Giwusa dated September 1, Bernalene Adams, the head of HR at Clover, acknowledged a meeting held by parties in August, saying the company believed “it would be appropriate for the parties to allow the judicial process to take its course and therefore cannot engage now on the re-employment of the employees retrenched during its restructuring in 2021/22”.
“Once these matters have been finalised by the courts and/or withdrawn by the unions, the company will be able to review its stance and consider the way forward accordingly.
“It would be the decision of the union to withdraw this dispute should you wish to engage further with the company on this matter. We remain committed to constructive engagement and to maintaining open lines of communications.”
Sebei said the union condemned “in the strongest possible terms the shocking and heartless decision by dairy giant Clover to unilaterally withdraw from negotiations aimed at the re-employment of hundreds of workers it cruelly discarded during its controversial restructuring process of 2021/22”.
“This decision is particularly galling and outrageous given that Clover’s fortunes have significantly recovered since the mass retrenchments.”
He said Clover had secured new distribution contracts and “openly acknowledges increased market demand, yet still refuses to honour its binding obligation to the very workers who built and sustained the company, and whom it discarded to make way for Milco takeover and increased profiteering”.
“The refusal to rehire workers, despite securing new contracts and increased work, proves conclusively that the retrenchments were never based on real productive needs,” he said.
Sebei said by maintaining reduced production capacity and workforce “while enjoying increased market power, Clover contributes to food inflation that hurts poor most severely by aggravating the cost of living crisis, hunger and starvation. Their business model literally takes food from the mouths of the poor workers and communities to feed corporate profits”.
Clover has been approached for comment, which will be added once received.
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