"Striking workers remove Clover products from shop shelves", 18 Janaury 2022

About 70 striking workers from Clover marched through Johannesburg’s inner city on Tuesday, calling on the public to boycott Clover products.

The workers, many of whom are members of the Food and Allied Workers’ Union (FAWU) or the General Industrial Workers Union of South Africa (GIWUSA)...went into grocery shops and removed Clover products from the shelves, leaving them in shopping trolleys.

“We want people to stop buying Clover products until the company meets our demands,” said Martin Ledwaba, GIWUSA shop steward.

The strike by Clover workers has entered its ninth week and workers say they won’t stop until their demands are met. They are demanding that the company stop plans for further retrenchments and reinstate all workers...

Last week, workers managed to secure an agreement with Clover at the CCMA that overdue bonuses would be paid by Friday, 14 January. But many workers said they had not received the full amount...

Inside the shop, the workers took trolleys and filled them with Clover products, leaving “Boycott Clover Products” pamphlets in some of the trolleys. The workers also handed out pamphlets to shoppers and onlookers in the streets as they marched through town.

Included in the reasons for the strike listed in the pamphlet are the workers’ opposition to “major restructuring” carried out by Clover which entails a change from nine-hour shifts to 12-hour shifts, making work compulsory on Sundays and public holidays and the introduction of a 20% salary cut.

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Clover management had not responded to GroundUp’s questions at the time of publication. Last week, the company said trading conditions were difficult with poor economic growth, rising costs and subdued consumer spending. Covid had added to these pressures. “For these reasons a comprehensive strategic review of all aspects of Clover’s business was undertaken, which led to the difficult decision to restructure.” Clover said it had explored “all possible avenues” to minimise retrenchments.