Rowan Callaghan
The membership of the Catering, Restaurant and Tearoom Association (Catra) may have changed over the last 76 years but the organisation still plays an integral part in issues facing members.
The employee organisation was formed in the “good old days” when the genteel citizens of Johannesburg frequented tea-rooms and the more risque could be found in bioscope cafes.
Today the industry is quite an important one and members make around R90 000 a month. After a relatively low key existence, the organisation has felt that it is time to introduce themselves to the public. “We were all involved in our own business and we were not full time with the association,” Catra chairman Jimmy Michaelides explains. He has only been with association as a full-time chairman for the past year.
Catra still offers protection to the family-operated grocer, cafe owner and Fish ‘n Chip shop but today its 5 000 members are drawn from many business areas. The fast food take-away, the ice-cream and pizza parlours, roadhouses and steakhouses are included in Catra.
Many of the family-operated grocers and corner cafes seem to be under threat from the increase in garage shops and supermarket chains but the association chairman dismisses this as not being a threat. “I don’t think that it has the impact in that we have a bigger variety of products.”
The association has been active in assisting members with benefits, labour relations and tenants’ rights. They help members organise benefits like Medical Aid, UIF and others for their employees.
Another area where they have been strongly involved is tenants’ rights. “Many individuals and organisations in our industry have, for a long time, complained about the clauses imposed by landlords on leases entered into with members of our industry,” Michaelides says. He pointed out that the return achieved by landlords often far exceeds the building costs of leased premises.
Catra’s work has led to discussions between the Business Practices Committee and the South African Property Owners Association during which possible unfair terms of leases will be discussed.
Hygiene is also an important issue to the industry and Catra will be mainly involved in educating and training those people who work directly with food through a number of workshops.
Michaelides is confident that his organisation will grow in the future. He maintains that at the moment their members make up 60 to 70 percent of the Gauteng region’s catering industry. They also plan to become more of a national association.