Massmart said on Friday that it had deployed outsourced retail staff to stores that may be affected by the strike action that has been announced by the trade union South African Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union (Saccawu).
The group said that it fully anticipates that its Makro stores will continue to operate without interruption.
This comes after Saccawu called on civil society to support their strike over a wage increase at Makro.
Employees have been offered a 4.5% increase by the employer, while they are demanding an increase of not less than 12%.
Saccawu issued a notice to resume the 10-day strike action at Makro stores after wage negotiations deadlocked for months.
Mike Tau, Saccawu's second deputy president, said it was approaching a year since they had been negotiating with Makro.
"We have tried all in our powers that we've got to convince management that they need to look after their employees. But the management has never reverted with any revised offer since they put the 4.25% and R410 on the table; they have not moved or improved their offer ... from the day we had a dispute with them," said Tau.
Meanwhile, Massmart said in a statement that according to the group’s research, there is little support for the strike action amongst Saccawu members.
“Evidence supporting this is that there has been a massive spike in resignations from the union since the strike action was announced. This is in addition to the more than approximately 1 200 Makro employees who have resigned from the union to accept the company’s wage offer. The union demand for a 12% increase and 20% commission on sales is quite clearly unrealistic, and is a direct contradiction to the fact that Saccawu accepted the company offer at our Game and Builders stores. We have no intention of amending our wage offer,” Brian Leroni, Senior Vice President of Group Corporate Affairs at Massmart, said.
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