About 1 500 workers will join the strike at Premier Foods Blue Ribbon Bakeries, the Food and Allied Workers’ Union (Fawu) said on Wednesday.
Fawu general secretary Katishi Masemola said the strike will be stepped up next Wednesday, following an unsuccessful meeting with Premier Foods in Cape Town on Tuesday.
”The company did not move an inch closer to our demand for a central bargaining system, hence the resolve to intensify the strike and consumer boycott,” he said.
About 2 000 union members took to industrial action on March 2, demanding the setting up of a national bargaining forum at bakeries owned by Premier Foods.
”We are extremely disappointed that our expectations in terms of finding a resolution to the current Blue Ribbon strike was shattered [on Monday],” said Masemola.
He said strikers are contract and permanent employees in the baking and milling divisions of Premier Foods responsible for the manufacturing of products such as Iwisa maize meal and Snowflake flour.
The majority of striking workers belong to the union, he said.
Premier Food’s corporate affairs manager, Steven Mallach, said the company’s position on centralised bargaining remained the same on Wednesday. Previously, Mallach said that a centralised bargaining council was not economically feasible and did a disservice to its employees.
He said that a centralised bargaining council would spell the end of many marginal bakeries — and the jobs of the workers employed at these.
Marginal bakeries are those who produce less bread and therefore have a lower profit margin. He said the problem had in the past been explained to Fawu.
Premier Foods is South Africa’s largest black-owned and -operated company and produces brands such as Blue Ribbon bread, Iwisa maize meal and Snowflake flour products.
Meanwhile, Fawu condemned police and security personnel’s ”heavy-handed tactics such as unleashing dogs and pulling out firearms without provocation”. As a result, he said, protest marches will be held in Johannesburg and Cape Town on Wednesday. — Sapa