Since the 22nd of November 2021, over 5 000 Clover workers, organised mainly by GIWUSA and FAWU have been on strike to oppose the brutal restructuring of Clover; entailing factory closures, massive job losses, wage cuts and intensified exploitation of the remaining workers.
The Workers and Socialist Party supports and stands in solidarity with the Clover workers and their unions: GIWUSA and FAWU. The strike comes less than a year after the previous strike at Clover and is a response to a most brazen and cruel attempt by Clover’s management to sweep away the gains in working conditions won over decades. Only an organized response will defeat Clover management’s attempt to impose a super exploitative and tyrannical ‘apartheid’ workplace regime.
Clover intends to cut worker’s wages by 20%. Additionally, Clover is proceeding with factory closures and retrenchments that it raised in the past and are parts of plans to save R300 million at the expense of workers. Over 1 400 workers are facing retrenchment and towns hosting closing factories, face economic devastation, a full impact of which will be felt over years.
It is in response to this cruel class programme and brutal restructurings that the militant Clover workers decided to make a stand and fight back. The workers demand:
- No Job Losses/retrenchments
- All Austerity measures to be withdrawn
- A wage increase of 10%
- The disinvestment of MILCO/CBC
- Nationalisation of Clover on the basis of a democratic workers control and management as an alternative to a hostile and imperialist MILCO take over and dismembering of Clover, factory closures and job losses
Capitalist attacks against the working class have increased since the covid pandemic with an increase in wage theft, retrenchments, factory closures and trade union victimization. As the Workers and Socialist Party, we see this strike as a collective call to action to unite against the deepening crisis of South African capitalism, Israeli colonialism, injustice and oppression against the workers here and in Palestine. We call on all progressive members of society to support striking workers by boycotting Clover products and petitioning against Milco’s ownership of Clover.
Since their takeover of Clover in 2019, Milco has stripped the company significantly to safeguard profits. The measures taken to raise profits have increased pressure on the workers. Rather than bringing investment into the country to achieve food-security in the country, Milco has geared itself as an extractive business. It has focused its dealings near port-cities and diminished food security in some of our most impoverished areas. Factories in Lichtenburg and in the Free State (Heilbron and Frankfurt factories) are set to close, placing thousands of workers at risk of losing their jobs. The workers, whose jobs are not yet lost, work gruelling twelve-hour shifts in a compressed six-day week, including public holidays. Such unfair labour practices jeopardize worker’s dignity, job security, safety and sanity. Workers’ demands for safe working conditions, dignified salaries, protection against unnecessary retrenchments, and fair voluntary severance packages are not far-fetched. Milco’s refusal to engage meaningfully with these demands, however, is truly obscene. Unions took Milco to the CCMA after refusing to offer anything above a 4,5% wage increase.
Of course, Milco are no strangers to such moral depravity. The Israel-based consortium is a subsidiary of the Central Bottling Company, which has near-monopoly market power over the Israeli beverage market. It has operations in the illegal Atarot settlement of East Jerusalem, and conducts business with vineyards in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. These operations, which are flagrant violations of international law, evidence how this company is willing to aid settler-colonialism and ethnic cleansing in its pursuit of profit. It comes as no surprise then, that its South African employees are under attack too. Milco’s takeover deal included a clause that would prevent retrenchments for two years. Now that this term is coming to a close- – Milco has been ruthless in its onslaught, wasting no time in its efforts to strip the company bare.
The calls for Milco to divest from South Africa are not just calls for worker dignity and Palestinian liberation. Rather, these calls and the demand for food security and an end to austerity measures in South Africa are connected. WASP’s position in this regard is clear: the working class must have democratic control and ownership of the economy. Together with meaningful land redistribution, a nationalised Milco could exist, not to provide profit for capitalists, but to meet the needs of all. Currently, a lower-income household’s food-basket is priced at R4,241. By guaranteeing farmers fair prices for their produce and utilising Milco’s processing and logistics infrastructure for the public good, we could go a long way to reducing hunger and malnutrition in this country.
We call for the working class to boycott Clover and to support the striking workers as a show of solidarity. Most importantly, WASP calls on workers and their unions to occupy and take over Clover from below. We call for a campaign for its nationalising Clover, and under the democratic control and management of workers and communities to stop factory closures, job losses in order to ensure decent living wages and working conditions. Furthermore, communities in areas where Clover factories are located must benefit from the surplus in order to create jobs in those areas while providing affordable dairy products.
