By Norm Dixon
JOHANNESBURG, July 24 — The militant strike by shop workers employed by South Africa's largest supermarket chain, Pick 'n Pay, continues. While there has been a noticeable reduction in the violent attacks by police that marred the strike's first week, workers continue to picket and march against the company's use of scabs and management's refusal to increase its wage offer.
Fifteen thousand members of the South African Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union (SACCAWU) employed in Pick 'n Pay's 350 stores are demanding a monthly wage increase of R229 (A$92). Management has refused to budge from its offer of R175 (A$70), to remain in force for 16 months. Pick 'n Pay's offer would result in a monthly wage of just R1650 ($660).
The strike, which began on July 13, has gathered wide public support after Pick 'n Pay management was granted a court order which prevented workers from picketing within 500 metres of any of their supermarkets. Within hours of the granting of the interdict, police swooped on strikers throughout the country in an operation that was later revealed to have been planned beforehand with Pick 'n Pay's bosses. In wild scenes, police fired rubber bullets, birdshot and teargas canisters at strikers, set dogs upon them and arrested almost 1000 workers.
After representatives of SACCAWU and COSATU met with national and regional ministers of safety and security on July 15, police intervention in the dispute dropped dramatically.
On July 18, at Nigel on the east Rand, 120 employees who occupied a shop were arrested. Business was disrupted at a Pick 'n Pay branch in Seapoint, Cape Town. Picketers sang and danced throughout the day. Shop owners in the complex described it as "a bad day for business". Police who briefly called to check on permits were accused of interference and shouted down until they retreated. On July 19, 200 SACCAWU workers occupied a supermarket in Verwoerdburg, between Johannesburg and Pretoria.
The strike widened, on July 18, when black managers organised in the Joint Affirmative Action Management Forum (JAMAFO) decided to join the industrial action. JAMAFO members occupied the offices at the Norwood Hypermarket, in Johannesburg's northern suburbs.
In a separate dispute, SACCAWU members employed by the Checkers/Shoprite chain of supermarkets, which is partly owned by Pick 'n Pay, also began strike action over the unfair dismissal of a shop steward. The union says that the steward was sacked after lodging a complaint about conditions. The strike involves 31 stores in the PWV and since it began, 300 strikers have been dismissed.
While Pick 'n Pay has been able to keep most of its stores operating with a skeleton staff of scabs and casual workers, management admitted that it was losing millions in turnover and profits. Despite the losses, management refused to increase its wage offer, even after SACCAWU offered on July 19 to compromise and accept a rise of R196. The union immediately reverted to its original R229 demand.
On July 19, Johannesburg's concrete canyons reverberated to the chants, songs and shouts of 8000 militant Pick 'n Pay workers has they marched on the grand building that houses the Johannesburg Stock Exchange which rises incongruously from the surrounding rather shabby constructions and sprawling hawkers' stalls in Diagonal Street. Workers' hand-written placards proclaimed their disgust at the bosses' stingy offer and the role of the police. Many signs criticised Pick 'n Pay's high profile television sponsorship of the recent World Cup soccer.
Workers were informed that COSATU's Wits region had given Pick 'n Pay a deadline of July 30 to agree to a settlement or face a general strike by all COSATU unions in the PWV region on August 8. COSATU regional secretary Langa Zita later announced that a COSATU's PWV affiliates would march on police headquarters at John Vorster Square on July 25 in solidarity with SACCAWU. COSATU is also likely to launch a nationwide consumer boycott of Pick 'n Pay. A statement of support from the South African Communist Party was relayed to the strikers.
The Pick 'n Pay strike is being seen as a test for the new ANC-led government by both the capitalist class and the working class movement.
The SACP's Jeremy Cronin believes the Pick 'n Pay bosses deliberately provoked the strike to try to place the ANC leadership in a situation where it would have "to teach the workers a lesson". Speaking at a public meeting on July 21, Cronin revealed that Pick 'n Pay had donated large amounts of money to the ANC for its election campaign. Pick 'n Pay has a "market-driven" view of politics and believed the ANC would side with them, Cronin said.
The SA Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union (SACCAWU) spokesperson, Sithembele Tshwete, said on July 27 that Pick 'n Pay management was refusing to negotiate on the union's wage claim and attempting to shift the focus of talks to the "behaviour" of picketers. The company is insisting that the union sign an agreement that workers, in the words of Pick 'n Pay company chairperson Raymond Ackerman, "picket freely but in a planned way" rather than in a "uncivilised" manner.
SACCAWU organisers around the country report that Pick 'n Pay store managers are making spurious claims of "intimidation" against picketers. Management in Port Elizabeth called the police on July 27 after striking workers entered the store canteen. Fifty three were arrested.
Union spokesperson Siphwe Walele denied anybody had been intimidated: "There are some people who get intimidated by the mere sight of people with placards singing and dancing. If we are to define intimidation as physical intimidation I would definitely deny there has been intimidation of any sort".
Ackerman also opportunistically claimed the strike may be linked to anti-semitism, citing allegations that some strikers had waved anti-Jewish placards outside some Pick 'n Pay branches. In a less than subtle attempt to compare the striking shop workers with those responsible for the bombings against Jewish targets in Argentina and London, Ackerman said Pick 'n Pay would not submit to "terrorist" tactics. "We all have got to stamp out racialism and hit it like a plague so it doesn't bedevil the future of this country", he intoned piously on national radio.
SACCAWU and COSATU have denied any anti-semitic motive in the strike action.
Ackerman's hypocracy was exposed when the July 27 Sowetan published a 1991 company document that revealed that Pick 'n Pay paid its employees on a race-based formula. Black workers were paid between R400 and R800 a month less than white workers with the same skills.
The strike has been condemned by the National Party, the Democratic Party and the Inkatha Freedom Party as well as in the editorials of the major daily newspapers. Their chorus called on the ANC and President Nelson Mandela to distance himself from the strikers and to intervene on the side of the bosses.
The Thatcherite DP said that "the ANC cannot afford to support the unions, as this will be a dangerous precedent. As a developing country South Africa cannot afford its militant unions much longer". The NP added: "Unambiguous choices will have to be made in favour of stability and economic growth".
Mandela disappointed them all when, following a meeting with COSATU general secretary Sam Shilowa on July 18, he came out clearly in support of the workers' right to strike, questioned the use of police in industrial disputes and called on employers to engage in honest and genuine negotiations.
"It seems there was not sufficient effort made to address workers' legitimate grievances," he said referring to Pick 'n Pay's "too swift" call to the police. Mandela added that while he strongly believed workers had the right to strike and fight for improved living conditions, they should do so without violence.
COSATU welcomed Mandela's "the rational and even-handed approach" and accused the NP, DP and IFP of attempting to "whip up a wave of anti-union hysteria ... calculated to stampede the government into taking sides against workers in their battle for a living wage and human dignity ... We have yet to hear one word from them condemning Pick 'n Pay's collusion with the courts and the police to crush a legally-declared strike ... It is ludicrous for them to accuse the President of 'taking sides' when they have a long history of union-bashing and anti-worker practices".