20 August 2024
Workers protested outside the Mister Sweet factory in Germiston on Tuesday. Photo: Kimberly Mutandiro
More than 600 workers have downed tools at Mister Sweet Factory in Wadeville, Germiston, demanding a minimum wage of R19,500 a month.
Workers protested on Tuesday outside the factory at the corner of Dekema and Bezuidenhout Roads. The strike began on Monday, 19 August, and workers say they will continue striking until the employer meets their demands.
Most are members of the Simunye Workers Forum. Mister Sweet, which was acquired by the giant Premier Foods in 2021, makes sweets, including gums, jellies, marshmallows, and chocolates.
The union is demanding a basic salary of R19,500 per month and a R15 an hour across-the-board increase for those who already earn that amount.
The company is offering a 7% wage increase.
The forum says workers have no basic salary and have been earning “very low wages” of R6,000 to R7,000 per month for the past 10 years. They claim that workers from other branches earn much more.
Striking workers said their work is risky and they do not earn enough to make it worth while. One worker told GroundUp a colleague had lost a finger this year in a machine.
Nthabiseng Nxumalo said she had worked for the company for 12 years, and had been earning R6,000 a month “for as long as I can remember”.
“All my money ends up on rent and food. Sometimes I’m compelled to borrow money from a loan shark. The company is now on the Joburg Stock Exchange because we have worked hard to raise it, yet we earn peanuts. We have decided to strike because we are fed up,” she said.
Lebogang Ndluli earns R9,000 a month as a machine operator and says she has worked for the company since 2018. “I deserve to earn more than R20,000 because the work that I do is too much,” she said.
Another machine operator, Alice Maguani, said a big chunk of her wage of R9,000 a month was spent on transport. “The company underpays us. It’s high time that the company pays us what we deserve.”
Premier’s spokesperson Siobhan O’Sullivan dismissed allegations that workers had never received a wage increase. “Employees have received negotiated and agreed-upon multi-year increases that were above wage inflation,” said O’Sullivan.
She said the current wage demand was “unrealistic”. Premier had offered a 7% wage increase, which had been rejected by the workers.
“Ongoing engagement has and will continue to take place,” she said.