Woolworths and the South African Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers’ Union (Saccawu) have reached agreement to resolve the organisational dispute that resulted in a strike, the retailer said on Tuesday.
The parties will enter into a verification exercise conducted under the auspices of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration.
Details of the agreement were not immediately announced on Tuesday.
Saccawu launched a strike four weeks ago demanding union recognition in dealing with workers’ issues, but Woolworths had always insisted that Saccawu did not have the required representation.
Negotiations also stalled due to conflicting views on the duration of verifying the number of workers belonging to the union.
Woolworths wanted the verification process to run over 30 days, while Saccawu believed five days would be enough.
Woolworths and Saccawu had been in a dispute since September 17.
The company claimed the union did not have enough members to be recognised and had therefore requested proof. Fewer than 6% of Woolworths staff participated in the picketing, it said.
“The strike is about organisational rights and not the conditions of employment. Woolworths’s employees are free to join any union of their choice. Woolworths will grant the union appropriate recognition if they demonstrate they are sufficiently representative. The vast majority of our employees (more than 85%), however, have not joined the union,” Woolworths told the Mail & Guardian Online last week.
The effect of the strike had been minimal, Woolworths said.
There had been isolated incidences of picketers not obeying picketing rules, including intimidation of store employees, leading to the retailer obtaining an interdict to ensure that Saccawu complied with the rules.