Daily News reports that about 600 employees of Super Group Convenience (SG Convenience) across the country have been protesting since 20 May to secure a 15% salary increase and a better working environment.

The branches include Durban, Johannesburg, Bloemfontein, Port Elizabeth, Cape Town and Nelspruit. Mashudu Raphetha, general secretary of the Dynamic Peoples’ Union of SA (Dypusa), said that nothing had changed since last week and the employer was still not engaging with the protesting staff. One employee, Mandisa Modise, said there have been false accusations from the employer that the strikers had become violent. “What we are upset about is that the employer has accused us of intimidating their staff and carrying sugarcane sticks as weapons. We have never done anything of that sort even as the operations have continued as normal. And they have also brought back nine employees who were part of the protest into the company,” she stated. Modise added that a disciplinary hearing had been called by the employer, but the union had refused for the members to be disciplined while on strike. According to the company’s notice to the union, video footage showed individuals “acting collectively and or associating themselves with unlawful conduct, threatening behaviour making use of, but not limited, sticks and bricks, obstruction of road to and from premises.”

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Phindile Nqumako at Daily News

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