POLOKWANE – The members, with the support of Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), its alliance partners, labour movements and other civil society formations marched from SABC Park to Game in Market Street via Excelsior and Mohlala streets on Friday (November 26).
At Game, Saccawu members handed over a memorandum of demands to a store representative, Niel Pretorius.
Pretorius said the memorandum that was handed over, would be escalated to the relevant people at head office.
Earlier this year Saccawu demanded that all forms of unilateralism be reversed and that Massmart show commitment to social dialogue and respect for the union. They also demanded the restoration of terms and conditions of employment that existed prior to the restructuring and downward variations of working hours and conditions; this including recalling all workers who lost their jobs as a result.
Massmart senior vice president of corporate affairs, Brian Leroni, said in an earlier statement that their view is that this dispute cannot be resolved.
“The strike action is primarily motivated by a Saccawu demand to reinstate retrenched Game employees who lost their positions as the direct result of bad advice provided by Saccawu during a Section 189 process that was completed at Game in June this year. Specifically, Saccauwu advised its affected members not to accept alternative positions that the company had identified,” Leroni explained.
He added that the Labour Court confirmed, in a ruling handed down with respect to this process, that “Saccawu had provided bad advice to its members saying, ‘It is not unfair for this Court to respectfully comment that the advice to the members was bad advice.’
“Massmart understands that this ruling has placed Saccawu in a difficult situation in the eyes of its membership. We therefore proposed a solution that included re-opening the opportunity for retrenched Game employees to apply for positions from among the approximately 1 100 job vacancies that are available throughout the Massmart group. This offer was, unfortunately, not accepted by Saccawu leadership,” Leroni said.
