http://www.mg.co.za/article/2008-10-16-three-horsemen-visit-durban

Three horsemen visit Durban
NIREN TOLSI | DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA - Oct 16 2008 06:00

In the past weeks the streets of eThekwini appear to have been preparing for the horsemen of the apocalypse.

For three weeks a wildcat bus driver strike has left miserable commuters huddled in lashing rain waiting for taxis or simply forced to walk to their destinations.

The thunder of electric storms sounds like the hooves of Pestilence's horse drumming in anticipation as the rubbish piles up in the rain because garbage collectors have also been on strike. Nineteen municipal buses and five trucks from the city's Durban solid waste (DSW) department have been torched -- the flames resembling War's red horse.

Call for Solidarity

At the Press Conference hosted jointly by SACCAWU and COSATU to give an update on the dispute and explain the reasons for the call of a consumer boycott of Woolworths a background document was circulated on the nature and history of the dispute. Below is a summary the document.

Briefing on the background to the current Woolworths strike

More than five thousand Union members are in the third week of a protected strike arising out of an organisational rights dispute between SACCAWU and Woolworths.

Employment Profile of the Company

At the time when dispute with Woolworthsfirst arose in 1999 with the unilateral derecognition of the Union, the company already had extremely high levels of atypical forms of employment and this has worsened since. At the time Woolworths claimed a staff compliment of 12 407 with more than 70% casual employees. By 2007 the staff compliment grew with to 17 838 with the percentage of full time staff shrinking in real terms, while the flexible employee compliment grew to 12 546. If the management are removed from these company figures the percentages will even be higher. In this same period the company's turnover grew by more than 110% from R8.8 billion to R18.6 billion over the same period. While operating profits for the same period grew by more than 300%.