Africa

White Workers at S Africa's Sasol Strike Over 'Racial Exclusion' (PHOTO)

The petrochemicals firm Sasol, which operates both in South Africa and the US, said last year that they had sold 25 percent of its local operations to qualifying black employees in a $1.42 billion deal. The company remains a world leader in technology related to the conversion of coal and gas to fuel.
Sputnik

About 6,300 members of South Africa's predominantly white Solidarity union have kicked off a go-slow strike at the petrochemicals firm Sasol in Johannesburg to protest against a share scheme which was only offered to black staff.

The union, which is poised to stage a full-blown strike on Thursday, said that the scheme excluded both white staff and foreign nationals and that all this amounts to racial exclusion.

"We are not against the scheme, we just want it to be inclusive of all workers. If the company makes it inclusive, the majority will still be black, so we see no need to exclude white workers as this is discrimination," Dirk Hermann, Solidarity’s chief executive was quoted by Reuters as saying.

He pledged that the union plans to file a complaint in the US before the end of next week.

Earlier, Solidarity announced that during a go-slow strike, they "intend to switch off a different section of Sasol each day by means of well-laid and strategic plans."

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Sasol, which has nearly 26,000 employees at its local operations in South Africa, said in turn that it was aware of the union's push to strike, adding they "have activated contingency measures to minimize a potential disruption to our operations."

25 percent of Sasol's local operations were acquired by the company's qualifying black staff in a deal that was worth $1.42 billion and financed by the company, which is now the world's leader in the development of technology for converting coal and natural gas to fuel.

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