Listed retailer Woolworths recognises the right of the South African Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers’ Union (Saccawu) to organise its members and embark on protest action, the company said on Wednesday.
”Woolworths will ensure that such action causes minimal disruption to customers and employees,” said Zyda Rylands, chief operating officer of support services. ”I know that Saccawu will support the need for a peaceful protest.”
The company is committed to its employees and works hard to develop and maintain sound direct relationships with all its workers, Rylands said.
”Woolworths maintains that it will give the union appropriate recognition once they have demonstrated that they have sufficient representation.”
Saccawu will stage a mass protest against the retailer in Johannesburg on Thursday.
”Woolworths has tried very hard to criminalise the pending strike by Saccawu members through effectively denying them their right to picket,” Saccawu said in a statement on Wednesday. ”While the union is challenging this attitude, members are steadfast in their resolve to go on a protected strike within the next few days.”
The union said Woolworths is engaged in a ”well-planned and well-orchestrated campaign to ‘Wal-Martise’ the South African services sector”.
According to the union, United States-based retailer Wal-Mart believes in ”the philosophy of a union-free workplace”.
Saccawu spokesperson Thabo Mahlangu said the protest march will begin at 9am at the union’s offices in Braamfontein. It will then proceed to the company’s Market Street store in the Johannesburg CBD where a memorandum will be handed to Woolworths’s management.
Mahlangu said he believes Saccawu represents up to 50% of Woolworths’s workers.
”This is not a strike per se, but obviously Woolworths’s workers will stay away from work to participate in the march,” he said. — Sapa