White Sasol workers go on strike on Monday over exclusion

Trade Union Solidarity members will protest against a new Sasol share scheme, which, according to the union, excludes white employees.

Members voted for the strike action and served Sasol in Sasolburg with a strike notice last week informing them of the plan to picket.

White employees are protesting against a share scheme named Khanyisa, offered exclusively to black employees.

According to the scheme, white workers and foreign nationals are excluded from the 10-year product.

Solidarity is challenging Sasol against the scheme and claim sit is in direct violation of the mining empowerment charter and general mining practice.

According to Solidarity, Sasol announced Khanyisa, in terms of which its black employees would get shares worth R500,000, while explicitly stating that white employees and foreign nationals would be excluded from obtaining shares.

Solidarity CEO Dirk Hermann said the trade union would begin with a picket followed by full-blown strike action.

Khanyisa succeeds the previous Inzalo scheme, which was a financial failure, but included white employees. Hermann said the new scheme was therefore a case study for the exclusion white people are experiencing in general.

The union sent the strike notice following a vote in which 95% of the union’s Sasolburg members voted in favour of strike action.