About 25 KFC employees were striking outside Grahamstown’s two franchises on Thursday morning.
About 25 KFC employees were striking outside Grahamstown’s two franchises on Thursday morning.
Blowing vuvuzelas and singing songs, energised employees began picketing outside Market Square only to temporarily scatter when the rain worsened.
Strikers are demanding a 12% wage increase, which they have brought down from the initial 15%, said Vuyani Jacobs, the local shop steward from the Food and Allied Workers Union (Fawu).
“There will be no work today,” Jacobs said and added that the strike will continue until their demands are met. The Eastern Cape managing director of KFC, who did not want his name mentioned, said that in two and half months of negotiations, the union has failed to accept any of their offers.
KFC has offered an 8.5% wage increase but Fawu has rejected this. “The union is not playing ball,” said KFC’s Eastern Cape managing director (MD).
He added that the unions and workers are not acknowledging that the country has been in a recession. Jacobs said: “This strike will take us where we want to be.”
The workers were singing songs, one of which called for Eastern Cape Managing Director Daryl McWilliams, to “get out of the country,” Jacobs said.
One striker, Aikhona Bemva’s reason for the strike was simple, “We want money,” she said. She wanted her R10.53 per hour wage to be increased by R2 an hour.
This is roughly a 20% increase, which is even more than Fawu was asking. Two police vehicles arrived
at Market Square’s KFC where the entrance was littered with rubbish and the front door showed signs of a thrown tomato’s splatter.
Jacobs denied that the workers were responsible for this. The crowd, however was already on their way to the Pepper Grove Mall’s franchise via High Street.
Two police vehicles arrived at the mall at the same time as the strikers. Eastern Cape KFC’s MD said that they had photographs of the workers littering the area.
This, he said, was one of the violations of the picketing agreement entered into by KFC and Fawu. As a result, KFC obtained an interdict to have the workers dispersed by the police.
Concerning the picketing agreement, Jacobs said that the requirement of remaining at a 100m distance from the KFC buildings was not printed on the Labour Court document he had in his possession.
To fulfil this requirement would mean that the workers were striking outside a business that had nothing to do with them.
Inside the Pepper Grove Mall branch, the manager, the police and Jacobs agreed that the strikers would remain outside the mall’s walls.
KFC’s MD said that while the 100 metre restriction might not be printed on the document, it was still agreed to in the meeting.
He added that everything done on KFC’s part was “procedurally correct.” Captain Mali Govender said that the strike is being monitored and that no violence has been reported at this stage
