White Sasol workers’ strike begins in Secunda on Monday
The public are urged to dress in blue as a sign of sympathy and support of the Sasol workers on strike on Wednesday, 5 September
SECUNDA – Sasol workers who are members of Solidarity Trade Union will embark on a strike action from Monday, 3 September.
Members received an official notice via SMS today that the strike will commence this coming week.
White employees of Sasol are unhappy about the exclusion of white employees in the company’s employee shares sceme, Khanyisa.
This will be the first time in South African history that white workers are striking because of racial exclusion.
The strike will commence on Monday with various protest actions.
This will escalade to Wednesday when Solidarity will call for a national day of support for these Sasol employees.
Dr Dirk Herman, operational manager of Soldarity, said today, 1 September that a complete strike will begin on Thursday with a mass gathering by the community at the Secunda plant and Sasol coal mines.
The focus will then turn to Sasolburg and will later include both plants and the coal mines for combined protest actions.
“We have planned for a three-week strike thus far, but we will go about it in a calculated manner. Our 6 300 members are highly skilled employees who are strategically of great importance to Sasol.
“We plan to daily switch off a different part of Sasol. We have the knowledge and influence to succeed, ” said Dr Herman.
Solidarity plans to close down Sasol Secunda by Thursday.
“We are receiving overwhelming support from the community.
“We expect hundreds of people from the community to join the Sasol employees at the mass gathering. There are even businesses that indicated that they will close that day to join the Sasol employees.”
Solidarity plans to hand over hundreds of memorandums of support for the Sasol employees from various companies.
Employees of Eskom, Telkom, Denel, various mines, ArcelorMittal, the police, agricultural corporations, aviation companies and many others will hand over memorandums on Wednesday.
The trade union furthermore called on South Africans not to buy Sasol petrol on Wednesday as a sign of support to the striking Sasol workers.
People are urged to dress in blue that day to show their support to the cause.
In the meantime, Solidarity has also applied to Nedlac that all its members in unity and solidarity with Sasol workers be allowed to take part in the legal mass action on the same date.
This request was denied by Nedlac, forcing Solidarity to turn to the court next week to review Nedlac’s decision.
Also read:
https://www.citizen.co.za/ridge-times/123196/solidarity-gives-sasol-notice-strike-white-employees/
