Protest against Sasol scheme
Solidarity objects to the exclusion of white trade union members from new employee share ownership deal
Members of trade federation Solidarity took to the streets of Sandton on Thursday to march in protest at their exclusion from Sasol’s new employee share ownership scheme, Khanyisa.
Members of trade federation Solidarity took to the streets of Sandton on Thursday to march in protest at their exclusion from Sasol’s new employee share ownership scheme, Khanyisa.
More than 2,000 union members wore bright orange Solidarity branded T-shirts and caps and marched from a nearby park to the JSE and then to the Sasol headquarters, where the federation’s leaders delivered memorandums.
They chanted “genoeg is genoeg” (enough is enough) and “sies Sasol” as they neared the buildings, and were greeted with the odd hoot from passing vehicles and puzzled stares from onlookers.
Solidarity said the exclusion of its white members from the Khanyisa scheme, launched on June 1, is out of step with international conventions to fight discrimination, the spirit of the Mining Charter, and the values of the constitution. It also claims the move violates provisions of the Employment Equity Act.
Sasol has maintained that Khanyisa is not part of Sasol’s employee benefit structures, but was designed to benefit previously disadvantaged groups, and to bump the company’s black ownership up to 25%.
The march came after Solidarity embarked on three weeks of industrial action in September and after a process at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration came to a close, without resolution, on October 3.
The federation, in its memorandum delivered to Sasol, threatened litigation if the company did not meet its demands to include or otherwise compensate white workers excluded from the scheme. It also called on the JSE to stop enabling Sasol and others with ‘‘racially exclusive schemes’’ listed on the exchange’s empowerment segment.
Manesh Jeram, a Sasol employee who is part of the scheme, joined the march in support of his colleagues. “I’m here in the name of fairness. I stood for it in ’94 with the ANC, and that’s why we are here today. I’m standing up for equal rights for everyone,” he said.
Michael de Waal said he was not marching for the shares, but against the way Sasol had managed the transition to a new employee share scheme, without providing adequate explanation to those excluded.
Mainly, De Waal said, he was protesting for future generations of white South Africans. “It’s companies just doing what the government wants. Where must we go as whites, where will we go eventually? We are thinking about our children, what is the future for our kids in SA?’’
A previous employee share scheme, Sasol Inzalo, had included all employees, regardless of race, below managerial level, and ended in May when it was replaced by Khanyisa.
Khanyisa is a R21bn empowerment scheme which, Sasol said, intends to create meaningful financial benefits for about 230,000 black shareholders and qualifying employees.
Phase one of the Khanyisa programme included all permanent Sasol employees who were participants of Sasol Inzalo and still employed, making them eligible for R100,000 worth of Sasol ordinary shares, or Sasol BEE ordinary shares, which will vest in 2021.
Solidarity members take issue with the second phase of Khanyisa in which each qualifying black employee will have “rights to shares” worth about R500,000, and funded through a loan from Sasol.
Sasol said it would study the Solidarity memorandum and respond when appropriate.
IT’S COMPANIES JUST DOING WHAT THE GOVERNMENT WANTS. WHERE MUST WE GO AS WHITES, WHERE WILL WE GO EVENTUALLY?