Members of the South African Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers’ Union (Saccawu) employed by the Shoprite Group are to embark on a national strike on Thursday after wage talks ended in a deadlock on Monday.
The union, which has threatened that the strike will continue until its demands are met, and added that this could even extend to a Black Christmas Campaign if necessary, has also called for a boycott of stores within the Shoprite fold of companies.
These include Shoprite, Checkers, OK Furniture, OK Foods, OK Mini Markets, House and Home, Hungry Lion, USave, Freshmark, 8 ’til late, Computicket, Rainbow Finance, Meat Market and Sentra.
The union said it would also be filing notices of solidarity or secondary strikes in all companies that provide services to or for Shoprite.
Saccawu members have already been picketing Shoprite stores at lunchtimes for the past few weeks.
“Whilst we are still open to constructive engagement, we refuse to be treated with contempt and like a group of ignorant individuals. We will continuously intensify our action against the company until the workers’ reasonable, fair and just demands are met!” the union asserted on Tuesday.
It added: “In the interim we have commenced programmes relating to a possible Black Christmas Campaign against Shoprite Group of companies, since our members have vowed to fight for as long as it takes.”
The union is demanding a minimum wage increase of R300 or 10%, whichever is the greater, while Shoprite is offering workers an 8,8% increase.
Shoprite Group Human Resources Director Callie Burger said the company was extremely disappointed with the union’s attitude, which showed little concern for the devastating effect that prolonged strike action would have on its own members. — I-Net Bridge