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- The South African Commercial, Catering, and Allied Workers Union will proceed with plans to hold a solidarity strike at six Massmart companies on Thursday.
- This comes after talks at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation, and Arbitration with Massmart's Makro collapsed on Tuesday.
- Massmart said it considered wage talks at Makro closed after 800 employees resigned as members of the union.
- For more financial news, go to the News24 Business front page.
The South African Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union (Saccawu) will press on with secondary strikes at Massmart companies on Thursday after talks to resolve a wage dispute at Makro failed.
The union announced that talks at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation, and Arbitration (CCMA) ended late on Tuesday with no resolution. Saccawu said it will embark on a secondary strike at Game, Fruitshop, Rhino, Builders Warehouse, Shield, and Jumbo starting on Thursday.
READ | Saccawu nixes Massmart group strikes to give arbitration a chance
The union's demands at Makro include an across-the-board increase of R900 or 12%, whichever is the greater, a minimum wage of R8 000, an increase to the commission on sales of 20%, and a moratorium on retrenchments.
Saccawu said in a statement that workers at Makro will go ahead with their strike action on Thursday after the negotiations broke down at CCMA on Tuesday. This strike action will include secondary strikes at other Massmart companies in solidarity with Makro workers, the union said.
"To the union's dismay, at the CCMA, the company still came to negotiations without the purported mandate. This is viewed by us as negotiating in bad faith. We as Saccawu have long suspected this company to have no regard at all for collective bargaining. This was just a ploy by this company to stall the planned action of the union on 15 December 2022," the statement said.
Massmart vice president of corporate affairs, Brian Leroni, said Saccawu tabled new demands at the CCMA on Tuesday and the company's negotiating team indicated that they would need to take these back to management for discussion.
READ | Union plans to intensify Makro strike targeting Massmart group companies
"The union rejected this request out of hand and walked out of the CCMA meeting. The company has tried on numerous occasions, in good faith, to try to reach an agreement. The union seems to be divided and our impression is that they are not interested in reaching an agreement," said Leroni.
Leroni said Massmart's position was that the 2022 wage negotiations have closed as 800 Makro employees have resigned from Saccawu with more staff members daily indicating that they wish to resign to receive their increases and nine months' back pay.
