Buwa Basebetsi Updates: End of Mr Sweet strike
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Workers at the Mister Sweet confectionery factory in Wadeville, Gauteng, began a strike on 19 August, which ended 11 weeks later. The company is owned by Premier FMCG, one of the oldest food and consumer packaged goods businesses in South Africa.
Premier FMCG’s chief executive officer, Kobus Gertenbach, earns R18.8 million per year in salaries and bonuses. Yet workers at Mister Sweet are paid different amounts on a ‘case by case basis’ – there’s no basic wage, and some earn as little as R6000 per month, even after ten years in the employ of the company.
The workers, members of the Simunye Workers’ Forum trade union, calculated that a living wage would be R19 500 per month, and decided to strike for this. This was always going to be a tough demand to win, especially at a company which sees no need to negotiate wage increases with unions, instead getting agreement from a tiny minority union to accept an inflation adjustment and then imposing this on the majority of workers.
However, the R19 500 living wage demand was reasonable and affordable for Mister Sweet. It also mattered in the South African context.
Premier FMCG’s chief executive officer, Kobus Gertenbach, earns R18.8 million per year in salaries and bonuses. Yet workers at Mister Sweet are paid different amounts on a ‘case by case basis’ – there’s no basic wage, and some earn as little as R6000 per month, even after ten years in the employ of the company.
The workers, members of the Simunye Workers’ Forum trade union, calculated that a living wage would be R19 500 per month, and decided to strike for this. This was always going to be a tough demand to win, especially at a company which sees no need to negotiate wage increases with unions, instead getting agreement from a tiny minority union to accept an inflation adjustment and then imposing this on the majority of workers.
However, the R19 500 living wage demand was reasonable and affordable for Mister Sweet. It also mattered in the South African context.
