The South African Trade and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu) on Friday accused Fidelity Springbok Security Services of discriminating against its members.
Spokesperson Ronnie Mamba said in a statement on Friday that Fidelity ”continues to target Satawu members for abuse, intimidation and victimisation”.
”Ever since Fidelity bought Chubb security, relations between them and Satawu have been compromised. In the past few weeks, Fidelity has suspended fulltime Satawu shop stewards in KwaZulu-Natal and replaced them with those from a rival union that did not participate in the three-month action,” he said.
”They haven’t even charged them with misconduct, saying they are still undecided.”
Mamba said other members were being deployed to branches were there were no Satawu members.
This, he said, was being done to ”frustrate and victimise Satawu members”.
”They claim the retrenchments form part of their restructuring exercise, but that is not so. They have also reduced salaries, saying they wanted to bring them to the minimum set by the sectoral determination,” Mamba said.
”Satawu views these developments as an infringement on the rights of these workers and would like to state it up front that it will resist these moves and will take it to the highest mediation authorities to prevent them.”
He said the union has already referred the matter to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA).
However, Fidelity’s CEO Wahl Bartmann disputed the claims, saying the company was only following the right procedure.
”There is no discrimination within the company. We treat everyone fairly and we believe that people have a right to take part in a strike,” he said.
”But those going on strike should take company acts into consideration. We are only following procedure, nothing else.” — Sapa