Mister Sweet Workers Face Disciplinary Hearings for Strike

Mr Sweet workers picketed outside the Department of Labour’s office in Germiston during their 11-week strike.

• Dozens of Premier’s Mister Sweet workers face disciplinary proceedings for gross misconduct after they participated in an 11-week strike.
• According to a notice issued by Premier, workers contravened a written agreement with the United Chemical Industries Mining Electrical State Health and Aligned Workers Union (UCIMESHAWU) by participating in the strike.
• But workers say they had resigned from this union long before the strike and had joined the Simunye Workers Forum (SWF).

At least 89 of Premier’s Mister Sweet workers who participated in an 11-week strike now face disciplinary proceedings.

Most of the 300 workers who had downed tools returned to work in November after weeks of negotiations between the company and union representatives. Strikers agreed to Premier’s initial offer of a 7% increase for operators and 6% for general workers during the current year, and of 6% for operators and 5% for general workers in 2025 and in 2026. They had initially demanded a minimum wage of R19,500 a month for the highest paid workers.

In September the Labour Court dismissed Premier’s urgent application to stop workers from striking, under the Simunye Workers Forum, at its Mister Sweet branch in Germiston.

However the company has now issued disciplinary notices to 89 workers. They say these workers were still members of the United Chemical Industries Mining Electrical State Health and Aligned Workers Union (UCIMESHAWU) at the time, and that the company had signed an agreement with UCIMESHAWU in April, in which the union had agreed that no strike action would take place.

But the workers say they left UCIMESHAWU in 2023.

Premier has previously argued before the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), that the workers should have been bound by a wage agreement signed in April with UCIMESHAWU. But in a ruling handed down on 23 May, CCMA commissioner Dineo Phokela found that “the majority of workers had resigned from UCIMESHAWU before the wage agreement was signed”.

“When the agreement was signed, UCIMESHAWU was no longer representative of the majority of workers at the workplace,” Phokela said. “The employer persists in alleging that UCIMESHAWU remains a majority without providing any proof thereof. They persisted in conducting wage negotiations with a union that was no longer representative of the majority of the workers at the workplace.”

Phokela said most of the resignations had taken place in July 2023. “In some instances, workers resigned from the Union twice, on both 26 July 2023 and 6 March 2024. They have elected to organise themselves as a workers’ forum under the banner of Simunye Workers Forum with 263 workers from Mister Sweet.”

Premier says the workers’ actions during the strike constitute gross misconduct or negligence, disrupting company operations, undermining both legal and contractual obligations and disregarding company policies. The company also says the strike was unprotected because the workers had failed to give notice of the strike to the employer as required by law.

But Simunye Workers Forum Organiser Jacob Potlaki pointed out that in May the CCMA had ruled that the strike was protected. Potlaki said the workers had only downed tools after the CCMA’s ruling. He said the union had given notice of the strike.

Potlaki said Premier had now come up with a “stunt” to fire workers for participating in a strike, and the Forum would approach the CCMA over the disciplinary hearings.

Premier spokesperson Siobhan O’Sullivan confirmed that 89 Mister Sweet workers are being charged with misconduct. She said disciplinary hearings are expected to end on 23 December, “following which appropriate action will be taken based on the outcome of the investigations”.

In a notice issued on 29 October, Deputy Registrar of Labour Relations Mongwadi Ngwetjana said UCIMESHAWU would be deregistered. The union had not complied with the Labour Relations Act (LRA) and had ceased to function in terms of its constitution, she said. “This office is of the view that the union ceased to function as a genuine trade union in terms of the LRA.”

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