ANA reports that the African National Congress (ANC) said on Monday it had “noted with concern the strike called by Solidarity against the employee share scheme targeting black employees at Sasol.”
Members of the union at Sasol engaged on Monday in a go-slow protest over a share scheme offered exclusively to black staff and said they would launch a full strike on Thursday. Commenting on the matter, the ANC said the right to strike was “sacrosanct to our democracy” and Solidarity had every right to exercise that right. But, ANC spokesman Pule Mabe went on to state: “However, we must be concerned when the rights we fought for and encoded in our nation’s Bill of Rights are abused for nefarious reasons that seek to undermine our democracy. The ANC is deeply concerned about the racist overtones of this strike, which seek to reverse the gains of our democracy.” Mabe claimed that, historically, Sasol has always had schemes that benefited white employees to the exclusion of their black counterparts. He applauded the initiative taken by Sasol and welcomed “its contribution towards the realisation of our constitutional imperative to share the wealth of the country with all her citizens” through the scheme.
- Read this report in full at The Citizen
- Read too, Solidarity members at Sasol on ‘go-slow’ ahead of Thursday’s full strike over share scheme, at Moneyweb
- And also, Solidarity says Sasol has taken transformation too far, at EWN
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page