Automobile plant employees strike again
Tumelo Mouwane | Wednesday April 12, 2017 15:47
A fortnight ago, the employees went on a six-day strike but agreed to go back to work while awaiting negotiations with the company’s CEO Kevin Pather. At the time, they decried alleged mal-administration and accused the company of not caring about their welfare. They agreed to go back to work having been promised a meeting last week Thursday. According to a highly placed source, the meeting failed to materialise since the CEO was only available to talk through a conference call. The meeting was postponed to Monday but Pather was still not present, something that PASDEC employees’ representative committee vice chairperson, Kabelo Phuthego said triggered yesterday’s tools down.
Phuthego said they will not go back to work unless proper negotiations take place in the presence of the company’s CEO and that the strike might take longer this time around.
He said they have decided to sideline other issues and focus primarily on the issue of payments because what “concerns them most are the payments”.
“Last week we agreed to go back to work because the company’s administration said we will negotiate on Thursday (past Thursday) in the presence of the CEO and the financial officer. The same failed to take place and we decided to take action. We think the strike is going to take longer this time around because it looks like this company is not willing to negotiate in good faith.
“For now we have sidelined issues of safety at the workplace; issues of working under hazardous environment without being insured and our primary focus is the salary. It is too little; we need to negotiate,” Phuthego said.
PASDEC public relations office could not be reached for comment. However, area Member of Parliament for Lobatse and Mineral Resources, Green Technology and Energy Security minister, Sadique Kebonang who played a major role in attracting the investors to Lobatse commented during a Kgotla meeting that the employees should avoid strikes because they turn investors away.
“If we try by all means to attract investors into the town for our youth to be employed then what follows it becomes a strike. We will chase these investors away and go back to square one,” he said.
In the same Kgotla meeting, town mayor Malebogo Kruger said parents should teach their children to appreciate the little they are offered.