FAWU strike continues

By Odette Ismail
09 March 2007

The Blue Ribbon strike which started on Monday left one member at the Salt River plant arrested after police claimed the man’s behaviour was unruly.

Over two-hundred Members of FAWU (Food and Allied Workers Union) were protesting peacefully yesterday, but when one man asked for the translation of documents handed over to the group of protestors, police reacted by arresting him.

Dominique Swarts, Media liaison for FAWU confirmed that police accused one of their members of bad behaviour and wanted to arrest him.

“Today workers are out there demonstrating yet again, it is peaceful, and our workers are consuming in their strike to demand a central bargaining forum as well as the request of management to deal with wage disparities.” , says Swarts.

After three days of national strike action by about 200 FAWU members, they want to resort to secondary strike actions within the Premier Foods group, including Premier milling.

Katishli Masemola, General Secretary of FAWU says they appeal to their sister union SACCAWU to call on its members to refuse handling all the Premier Foods products. He says, “ not necessarily through secondary strikes, but through other action, but we are calling on all their retail workers not to deal with any food products of the Premier Foods group. “