Polokwane – Workers at RCL Foods in Tzaneen, Louis Trichard, and Thohoyandou, on Friday embarked on an indefinite strike over failed wage increment negotiations.
The General Industries Workers Union (GIWUSA) said its members overwhelmingly responded to the call for the strike.
“The turnout and the mood at the pickets were great and demonstrated determination to fight,” said GIWUSA in a statement.
“Workers were singing, chanting, and toy-toying in the spirited picket outside of the company premises to show the employer the seriousness of their demands and determination to fight for them.
“The workers want wage increases, and the employer has thus far not been meeting their demands.”
GIWUSA said the workers were demanding an increase of R600 a month, while the employer was only offering R410.
The union described the employer’s offer as “not only pitiful but regressive compared to the awfully inadequate R450 [increase per month] paid to workers last year”.
GIWUSA said it was “damning” that “a big food manufacturer like RCL, which owns the country’s most famous food brands and employs over 20 000 people,” was claiming that it cannot afford the workers’ wage hike demands.
“It reveals not only the obvious fact that capitalism does not even want to meet the basic demands of the workers,” said the union.
“Most importantly, it shows the racial and class brutality of the neo-colonial capitalism in South Africa in its determination to perpetuate a regime of primitive capital accumulation based on common slavery of the black working class 30 years into democracy.”
GIWUSA revealed that workers were earning R 5 100 per month.
“That’s way too little compared to what the company makes out of the efforts of the workers and the tens of thousands [of rand] that management rewards themselves with,” the union said.
The Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity Group says the household affordability index averages R 5 324,86 for January 2024.
“Compare this to the wages and you’ll see that the workers are at a disadvantage,” said GIWUSA.
“‘R 2 837,56 goes to food, and these are regular food items like maize meal, samp, cooking oil and rice, then just over a thousand rand (R 1 005, 81) goes to domestic and hygiene products.
“The salary is then gone after one weekend of shopping when we include transport, electricity, rent, medication, and clothes.
“That is the reason the workers’ movement needs a political strategy, organisation, and power to overthrow capitalism here and internationally.”
GIWUSA said it was engaging with members in other Sunbake depots including Polokwane, and Pretoria, and other brands of RCL to consider secondary strikes.
The union said it was uniting RCL workers for a national strike in the event the employer does not improve their offer.
