Workers didn’t win many concessions in the Pick ‘n Pay strike but there is hope for better relations with management, writes Drew Forrest
PICK ‘n Pay workers have lost their bitter three-week wage strike — but the settlement package holds out the prospect of reconstruction of union-management relations at the retail giant.
And Labour Minister Tito Mboweni has said government will not in future intervene in labour conflict. “The Pick ‘n Pay dispute was an exceptional case and intervention here was only at the level of recommending mediation,” he told the Weekly Mail & Guardian.
The Pick ‘n Pay deal, reached after mediation between the company and the South African Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union (Saccawu), entails a R180 across-the board increase for 15 months, or 12,3 percent. This is a marginal improvement on management’s pre-strike offer and contrasts starkly with the union claim of R229 over 12 months.
But the settlement also comprises a commitment to investigate worker training and development and career pathing, affirmative action, worker empowerment and disclosure of information at Pick ‘n Pay, where Saccawu insists labour relations are much more conflict-ridden than generally portrayed.
Saccawu campaigns co-ordinator Jeremy Daphne said that on the wage issue, the strike had not succeeded. But he added: “As a learning process for both sides, it was successful. Management now understands that everything is not rosy on the Pick ‘n Pay shopfloor.” He stressed that leadership problems in Saccawu could not explain the intense acrimony and conflict surrounding the strike. Pick ‘n Pay had been hit by more wildcat stoppages than almost any other company in the sector in recent years, and had narrowly escaped a national pay strike in 1993. This year’s wage offer had been the lowest in five years.
In addition, workers had been led to understand that the recent deal with Pick ‘n Pay on job flexibility and mobility would bring improved wage levels.
Pick ‘n Pay industrial relations manager Kevin Wynne said the return-to-work agreement involved a programme to minimise further conflict. Management had offered cash- strapped strikers advances on back-pay to tide them over, he said.
Most of the relationship-building features of the agreement had been on the table before the strike, but would now be accelerated. New features included plans to revise the recognition agreement and the negotiation of rules governing lawful and unlawful strike action. Before and during the strike, Saccawu balked at an agreement on strike conduct.
Violence at stores across the country did little to help Saccawu’s cause — Pick ‘n Pay took an exceptionally hard line on the pay demand. “Violence has the opposite effect of what is intended,” said Wynne. “It hardens attitudes.”
Management has, however, agreed to withdraw trespass charges and review criminal charges laid against strikers.
The strike also turned the spotlight on police methods — stun grenades, rubber bullets and dogs were used against strikers. Saccawu has called for a judicial commission of inquiry into police actions, and for injured strikers to be compensated.
Eddie Koch reports metal union leader Enoch Godongwana as saying that the end to labour strife in the retail sector heralds a return to normal collective bargaining.
Some 25 000 workers at car manufacturing plants around the country have been on an orderly strike since Monday in a push for a 12 percent wage hike. “Our members are losing wages and the manufacturers are losing production. There is a genuine effort on the part of both parties to settle the dispute. This is how the collective bargaining system works,” said Godongwana.
The National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa) was locked in another round of talks with representatives of the Automobile Manufacturers Employers’ Organisation on Thursday. Both parties were cautiously optimistic they could break the deadlock.
Management has offered a nine percent increase on average wages in the industry. Numsa also wants a rapid narrowing of the racial wage gap in the auto industry.
Industrial action may be staved off in the giant metal and engineering industries, with the appointment of Independent Mediation Service of South Africa mediator Professor Mark Anstey.
Numsa, Nactu’s Metal and Electrical Workers Union and the Chemical Workers Industrial Union have rejected the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation’s nine percent offer.
Other sectors under stress include the public service and hotel industry. Hotel employees vowed to march from the Mount Nelson Hotel in Cape Town to parliament on Thursday in a protest at “major retrenchment drives in the hotel industry” since the elections.
The Public Service League of South Africa said it would stage a general strike to back demands that wages and conditions of service for administrative staff in the public service receive immediate attention.
After a meeting of about 500 members in Cape Town on Wednesday, PSL chairman Malcolm Domingo said workers were concerned about the ANC’s demand that the wages of public service employees be cut and the savings redirected to the Reconstruction and Development Programme.