About 6,300 members of South Africa's predominantly white Solidarity union have kicked off a go-slow strike at the petrochemicals firm Sasol in Johannesburg to protest against a share scheme which was only offered to black staff.
The union, which is poised to stage a full-blown strike on Thursday, said that the scheme excluded both white staff and foreign nationals and that all this amounts to racial exclusion.
White workers begin strike in #SouthAfrica: More than 6,000 workers from the mainly white union — Solidarity — have begun a three-week strike in #SouthAfrica over their exclusion from a company share scheme by petrochemicals company #Sasol.#SasolStrike pic.twitter.com/P3dhLbxm4j
— Stream Africa (@Stream_Africa) 3 сентября 2018 г.
"We are not against the scheme, we just want it to be inclusive of all workers. If the company makes it inclusive, the majority will still be black, so we see no need to exclude white workers as this is discrimination," Dirk Hermann, Solidarity’s chief executive was quoted by Reuters as saying.
He pledged that the union plans to file a complaint in the US before the end of next week.
this the setting solidarity workers activated when they decided to strike against being excluded from a sasol black empowerment scheme pic.twitter.com/LWD36mY9Nu
— zak (@zakareeee) 3 сентября 2018 г.
Earlier, Solidarity announced that during a go-slow strike, they "intend to switch off a different section of Sasol each day by means of well-laid and strategic plans."
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25 percent of Sasol's local operations were acquired by the company's qualifying black staff in a deal that was worth $1.42 billion and financed by the company, which is now the world's leader in the development of technology for converting coal and natural gas to fuel.
