The South African Commercial Catering and Allied Workers Union (SACCAWU) expresses its strong condemnation for the unfolding threat to the job security and negotiated working conditions of approximately 22 000 Pick n Pay employees, just three (3) days after they celebrated May Day. The company’s threat of job losses or an acceptance of the down variation of their working conditions, with the aim of reducing the company’s Non-Management Bargaining Unit (NMBU) wage bill.

The S189A CCMA notices issued to employees effectively give them two undesirable choices, one is to accept retrenchments, or as an alternative to retrenchments, to accept the downward variation of their negotiated conditions of employment, which includes their agreement to cancel all their collective agreements on workers’ rights and protections.

Sean Summers’ decision to refer a dispute to the CCMA, before their proposals were tabled to SACCAWU is indicative of the bad faith with which they are embarking on this process. Abusing the CCMA’s resources before SACCAWU had had sight of their proposals should be condemned in the strongest terms. 

However, when one looks at the sweeping changes Pick n Pay is seeking to bring about, one can understand why they opted to bypass established internal processes. Among the far-reaching changes Pick n Pay seeks to introduce is –

• Reducing working hours from 196 hours per month to 176 hours (this is equivalent to a R2000 reduction in wages per employee)

• Doing away with transport for employees who work late shifts that fall outside normal public transport schedules, and those who work a night shift.
• Withdrawing the negotiated 13th cheque for Non-Management Bargaining Unit.

• Scrapping the legislated 1,5% Sunday Pay, by treating Sunday as a normal working day.

• Doing away with benefits negotiated for Variable Time Employees (Part-timers).

• Doing away with the Flexibility and Multi-Skilling Agreement which was intended to create a more multi-skilled and flexible workforce.

Pick n Pay’s decision to refer a S189A dispute to the CCMA, rather than table its proposals at the established internal National Negotiating Committee are indicative of its attempts to unilaterally change working conditions and to restructure its Non-Management Bargaining Unit wage bill. While Pick n Pay singles out the employees’ working conditions in the NMBU, they conveniently do not show how much, as a percentage of the company’s wage bill is allocated towards its Executives and Management structure.

It must be noted that Pick n Pay’s desperate strategy to attack the gains made by its workers will have the unintended consequences of deepening the economic crisis families of workers are already faces.  Pick n Pay Management are hellbent on ringfencing their own high salaries and benefits, while deepening the levels of poverty, unemployment, inequality, and economic hardship through its large-scale retrenchment. Furthermore, its restructuring and retrenchment strategy is a direct attack on SACCAWU, as the majority trade union representative of its Non-Management Bargaining Unit, and the rights of trade unions to negotiate improvements in the working conditions and benefits for workers. Workers cannot continue to bear the burden of corporate restructuring and business challenges, while executives and shareholders are protected.

Pick n Pay is disingenuous by laying the blame or the company’s financial and operational difficulties at the feet of its employees, and their purported high salaries, out of sync working conditions, and lack of flexibility. The express purpose for agreeing a 60% Variable Time and 40% Full Time employment ratio was to ensure the company has a more flexible workforce.

Pick n PAY also neglects to admit that its previous two CEO appointments have driven the company from a status of healthy profitability and market share into the shell of its former glory it is experiencing. Indicative of this is the wastage the company has suffered through Peter Boone, its former CEO’s QualiSave strategy, which was undone by Sean Summers immediately upon his appointment.   

SACCAWU members and workers in general within Pick n Pay have continued to demonstrate commitment, loyalty, and resilience to grow the profitability of the company, even under extremely difficult working conditions, spearheaded by a regressive and oppressive workplace culture.

It is SACCAWU’s view that invoking Section 189 or 189(A) undermines any form of effective consultation and/or collective bargaining between the impacted parties and further undermines any effort to find amicable solution. A dispute referred for a CCMA facilitated processes will prove to be nothing more than a simple tick-box exercise, which will not yield any meaningful solutions to a complex set of issues that represents matters of principle for both parties.

Given the employment relations crisis that Pick n Pay’s proposed threat of large-scale restructuring and retrenchments brings, the Ministry of Department of Employment and Labour must employ different intervention in this instance to urgently to safeguard jobs and ensure compliance with labour laws, and adherence collective agreements and fair consultation process.

Without venturing into discrediting the CCMA’s processes, experience has shown that facilitated processes relies on the willingness of parties to a dispute to find amicable solutions, as none can be imposed on the parties. The CCMA tend to tolerate Pick n Pay’s abuse of S189 referrals directly to it, without any attempts to address and/or resolve these matters internally first.

SACCAWU, as part of our historic mission and commitment strive to defend members and workers’ rights, protecting jobs, and ensuring that workers are treated with dignity and fairly. We will oppose any attempt to unfairly and/or unlawful downward vary or retrench workers and will mobilize all organizational and legal mechanisms to protect our members and all affected employees.

If further provoked we are organizationally ready to mobilize and campaign to rally our members and communities to unleash industrial and mass action in defence of our members, their families, collective agreements, workers’ rights and our country’s economy from vultures seeking to devour human progress and developmental imperative aimed to deliver better life for workers.

Like dry land thirst for water, our country needs jobs security, hope, decent work, not job losses, uncertainty and growing numbers in the army or reservoir of unemployed. 

Issued by SACCAWU Secretariat