A court
decision to allow Walmart to
do business in South Africa
has set a tone for the
future of direct foreign
investment in South Africa
and Africa. The decision is
set to divide the working
class even further. In
preparing to compete with
the retail giant, South
Africa’s retail industry has
already shed jobs.
At the end of 2010 Walmart, an American public multinational corporation, publicly announced its intentions to acquire a 51% majority share of Massmart on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. The announcement was met with resistance by Saccawu, a South African trade union representing workers in the retail and wholesale sectors. “We are not happy because we believe that the deal would put us at a more disadvantage as a country than it would do any good and Wal-Mart has a track record of being anti-union and hugely exploitative”, Lucas Ramathlodi, coordinator of Saccawu Secretariat said at the time.
It seems that Saccawu’s statement was not just formed of paranoia. The company indeed has a dodgy track record. Founded in the early nineteen sixties it started trading on the New York Stock Exchange in the early seventies, Walmart grew faster and became a giant in the retail sector. However, the company is extremely anti-union and has grown as a result of promoting lost prices at the expense of workers’ wages and benefits. It even has a manual to guide its managers, illustrating how to keep itself free of trade unions.
Walmart faces roughly around 5000 lawsuits a year however they seem to have managed to win plenty of them. In explaining this Ramathlodi says “We have seen instances where some communities stood against Walmart and fought but unfortunately they couldn’t, with their power and ability to dictate terms and financial muscle they outmuscled such communities, with the weight of Walmart they can simply push everybody around”. According to Saccawu Walmart has gone to the extent of closing shop where the “associates” as they call their employees have managed to unionize.
Despite this background, a South African court has recently given Walmart a go ahead to trade in South Africa with very minimum conditions which include the rehiring of 503 workers retrenched as part of preparing for Walmart ‘s take over While the ruling is seen as a win-win situation by many the biggest fear is the impact Walmart’s entry in South Africa will have on the already exploited workers in the retail sector as well as outcompeting and closing down local small business. There is also a concern that Walmart will outcompete bigger rivals such as Pick ‘n Pay and Shoprite-Checkers through cheap imports and lower labour costs. Trade unions and the SA government are concerned about this and its impact on job-security of workers of these companies. They are also concerned about Walmart expanding its cheap imports with less local procurement of goods from local suppliers which could impact severely on local companies, jobs and the South African economy.
Hector Louw is an ex-worker of Game who left his employment due to what he calls “brutal working conditions”. Louw was employed as a casual worker for six years. He says “it was a very precarious system where as a casual worker you didn’t have the basic rights that are enshrined in terms of the labour laws of this country, it was quite difficult to join a trade union because you would be victimized.” According to Hector, as workers they were subdivided, “you would have part timers and flexi-timers and there was a difference between the two where you find other ones conditions were much better than the other ones’”.
Hector is just one out of thousands of the workers who knows about the exploitation in the retail sector. While the losses of the deal between the two companies seem to outweigh all the gains made over the past years some believe that this is a good investment for the country. Dr Nicola Theron, managing director of Econex who also heads the competitions practice says “on the positive side this is a large company that will bring stores to this country, that will certainly roll out stores with a variety of products at very cheap prices which to the consumer will be a positive aspect and that is why they have been welcomed into other countries”. However it seems that these cheap prices and employment opportunities will come at a very high cost. According to reliable sources, in Makro alone, since Walmart’s take over, conditions of employment have changed for the worse. “People get fired for petty things, they are looking for a new breed of workers and want to get rid of workers with long service, even though I go to work every day I worry that I might not finish the month still with a job”, said one worker who didn’t want to be named for fear of victimisation.
Meanwhile Phillip Malapela who worked for Game Stores for 15 years before being retrenched along with 502 other workers as a way of preparing for Walmart’s entry into the country, still bears the scars of his retrenchment. Pouring his heart out to Workers’ World about the impact of his forced retrenchment Phillip said “it impacted on all spheres of life, firstly I’ve got children I was unable to continue to sustain the life we were having, we had to downgrade. As I am speaking to you now even buying a loaf of bread is a mission”. Malapela is very happy with the court’s decision to reinstate them, however he fears that he might never be reinstated as per the court’s ruling, “our colleagues that we were working with at Game stores said that they are being phoned to go and fill up positions at Cambridge stores, when you look at the working conditions within that stable of Cambrige and Game those are two different scenarios…” he said. Malapela believes the company is deliberately sidelining workers who were shop stewards.
However on further clarifying the reinstatement with the workers’ trade union Saccawu, Ramathlodi explained that the company is willing to reinstate all the 503 workers but the issue both parties were disagreeing on is how the reinstatement is to be done. According to Ramathlodi the company wants the reinstatement to be effective from the date of the court decision while the union wants it to be effective from when the workers were retrenched in 2010. Ramathlodi further indicated that as part of the reinstatement workers will not lose out and in places where their positions are no longer available, workers will be given positions that are equal or similar to those that they were holding before their retrenchment.
Key to Walmart’s promises is new job opportunities and cheaper prices and with South Africa having a high rate of unemployment and food prices escalating these promises could lead to divisions within the working class. Ramathlodi acknowledges this possibility and cautions the working class “I think it’s important that we also galvanize an understanding to the whole society…., it doesn’t make sense for someone to be saying that as long as I’ve a job its okay when in fact that job has come at a cost of four other jobs elsewhere’. A big question that is left without any answers is if indeed the company is in a position to create more jobs and why they were not willing to reinstate the retrenched workers in the first place. According to Ramathlodi the fight is far from over and Saccawu still has a battle to wage and war to continue with and vowed to protect workers at all costs.
At the end of 2010 Walmart, an American public multinational corporation, publicly announced its intentions to acquire a 51% majority share of Massmart on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. The announcement was met with resistance by Saccawu, a South African trade union representing workers in the retail and wholesale sectors. “We are not happy because we believe that the deal would put us at a more disadvantage as a country than it would do any good and Wal-Mart has a track record of being anti-union and hugely exploitative”, Lucas Ramathlodi, coordinator of Saccawu Secretariat said at the time.
It seems that Saccawu’s statement was not just formed of paranoia. The company indeed has a dodgy track record. Founded in the early nineteen sixties it started trading on the New York Stock Exchange in the early seventies, Walmart grew faster and became a giant in the retail sector. However, the company is extremely anti-union and has grown as a result of promoting lost prices at the expense of workers’ wages and benefits. It even has a manual to guide its managers, illustrating how to keep itself free of trade unions.
Walmart faces roughly around 5000 lawsuits a year however they seem to have managed to win plenty of them. In explaining this Ramathlodi says “We have seen instances where some communities stood against Walmart and fought but unfortunately they couldn’t, with their power and ability to dictate terms and financial muscle they outmuscled such communities, with the weight of Walmart they can simply push everybody around”. According to Saccawu Walmart has gone to the extent of closing shop where the “associates” as they call their employees have managed to unionize.
Despite this background, a South African court has recently given Walmart a go ahead to trade in South Africa with very minimum conditions which include the rehiring of 503 workers retrenched as part of preparing for Walmart ‘s take over While the ruling is seen as a win-win situation by many the biggest fear is the impact Walmart’s entry in South Africa will have on the already exploited workers in the retail sector as well as outcompeting and closing down local small business. There is also a concern that Walmart will outcompete bigger rivals such as Pick ‘n Pay and Shoprite-Checkers through cheap imports and lower labour costs. Trade unions and the SA government are concerned about this and its impact on job-security of workers of these companies. They are also concerned about Walmart expanding its cheap imports with less local procurement of goods from local suppliers which could impact severely on local companies, jobs and the South African economy.
Hector Louw is an ex-worker of Game who left his employment due to what he calls “brutal working conditions”. Louw was employed as a casual worker for six years. He says “it was a very precarious system where as a casual worker you didn’t have the basic rights that are enshrined in terms of the labour laws of this country, it was quite difficult to join a trade union because you would be victimized.” According to Hector, as workers they were subdivided, “you would have part timers and flexi-timers and there was a difference between the two where you find other ones conditions were much better than the other ones’”.
Hector is just one out of thousands of the workers who knows about the exploitation in the retail sector. While the losses of the deal between the two companies seem to outweigh all the gains made over the past years some believe that this is a good investment for the country. Dr Nicola Theron, managing director of Econex who also heads the competitions practice says “on the positive side this is a large company that will bring stores to this country, that will certainly roll out stores with a variety of products at very cheap prices which to the consumer will be a positive aspect and that is why they have been welcomed into other countries”. However it seems that these cheap prices and employment opportunities will come at a very high cost. According to reliable sources, in Makro alone, since Walmart’s take over, conditions of employment have changed for the worse. “People get fired for petty things, they are looking for a new breed of workers and want to get rid of workers with long service, even though I go to work every day I worry that I might not finish the month still with a job”, said one worker who didn’t want to be named for fear of victimisation.
Meanwhile Phillip Malapela who worked for Game Stores for 15 years before being retrenched along with 502 other workers as a way of preparing for Walmart’s entry into the country, still bears the scars of his retrenchment. Pouring his heart out to Workers’ World about the impact of his forced retrenchment Phillip said “it impacted on all spheres of life, firstly I’ve got children I was unable to continue to sustain the life we were having, we had to downgrade. As I am speaking to you now even buying a loaf of bread is a mission”. Malapela is very happy with the court’s decision to reinstate them, however he fears that he might never be reinstated as per the court’s ruling, “our colleagues that we were working with at Game stores said that they are being phoned to go and fill up positions at Cambridge stores, when you look at the working conditions within that stable of Cambrige and Game those are two different scenarios…” he said. Malapela believes the company is deliberately sidelining workers who were shop stewards.
However on further clarifying the reinstatement with the workers’ trade union Saccawu, Ramathlodi explained that the company is willing to reinstate all the 503 workers but the issue both parties were disagreeing on is how the reinstatement is to be done. According to Ramathlodi the company wants the reinstatement to be effective from the date of the court decision while the union wants it to be effective from when the workers were retrenched in 2010. Ramathlodi further indicated that as part of the reinstatement workers will not lose out and in places where their positions are no longer available, workers will be given positions that are equal or similar to those that they were holding before their retrenchment.
Key to Walmart’s promises is new job opportunities and cheaper prices and with South Africa having a high rate of unemployment and food prices escalating these promises could lead to divisions within the working class. Ramathlodi acknowledges this possibility and cautions the working class “I think it’s important that we also galvanize an understanding to the whole society…., it doesn’t make sense for someone to be saying that as long as I’ve a job its okay when in fact that job has come at a cost of four other jobs elsewhere’. A big question that is left without any answers is if indeed the company is in a position to create more jobs and why they were not willing to reinstate the retrenched workers in the first place. According to Ramathlodi the fight is far from over and Saccawu still has a battle to wage and war to continue with and vowed to protect workers at all costs.
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