Makro rejects union requests and appoints outside labour to keep stores open throughout the strike

Massmart has deployed outsourced retail employees in Makro outlets that may be disrupted by South African Commercial, Catering, and Allied Workers Union strike action (Saccawu).

The walkout began on Friday, March 24, 2023, when the labour union failed to reach an agreement with Massmart over salary hikes for 2022 after months of discussions.

Saccuwu had requested a 12% raise or R900 per month, whichever was greater.

It also demanded that workers be paid a R8,000 minimum pay and that the existing 10% commission be increased to 20%.

Massmart has given a 4.5% raise, which Saccawu previously accepted for its Gaming and Builders staff.

Brian Leroni, Massmart’s senior vice president of corporate relations, called Saccawu’s demands “quite clearly unrealistic.”

According to his judgement, there is limited support for the strike action among Saccawu members.

“Evidence supporting this is that there has been a massive spike in resignations from the union since the strike action was announced,” said Massmart.

“This is in addition to the more than approximately 1,200 Makro employees who have resigned from the union to accept the company’s wage offer.”

All of the prior resignations took place during the last four months.

This amounts to around 37% of Makro’s overall workforce of approximately 3,200 workers, including those who are not Saccawu members.

The union claimed in an interview with Bongwani Bingwa on Radio 702 that it had reduced its salary rise demand to 6.5%, or around R650 per month.

In response to a question from MyBroadband, Leroni dismissed such assertion as “patently untrue.”

“One need only look at their media release announcing the strike action to recognise this,” Leroni said.

He also told Bingwa that Massmart had made a cash and percentage increase offer at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation, and Arbitration hearings a few weeks ago.

“That would have had the effect of increasing the percentage increase for lower-level staff at Massmart to between 6.5% and 7%.”

According to Leroni, Saccawu did not answer and instead opted to go on strike.

He also stated that Saccawu’s demands would involve managerial personnel.

“That puts this into quite different light in terms of the percentage increase that we are prepared to agree [to],” Leroni said.

“This is a business that lost R1.5 billion last year; we simply can’t afford a high increase.”

Leroni went on to say that Makro had no plans to change its pay offer and that operations at its outlets would continue as usual.

“We have temporary employees that are now very adept at our processes because this dispute has been going on for some time, and they serve our customers very efficiently,” Leroni stated.

Nonetheless, videos on Twitter appeared to show strikers at Pretoria’s Makro Silver Lakes and Durban’s Makro Springfield successfully blocking the store’s parking entrance on Friday.

The strike is anticipated to go until April 2, 2023, with Saccawu and allied unions calling on the people to boycott Makro.

Leroni stated that Makro had received several unsolicited letters of support from clients who agreed with Saccawu’s requests.