Recent strike at Silverstar: Employees unhappy

Workers from Silverstar made their voices heard on 4 and 5 February when they protested in front of the entertainment venue.

Bigboy Motha, a representative of the Future of South African Workers Union (FOSAWU) explained to the News the two main reasons why employees were unhappy.

“Our employer made the decision not to pay us our 13th cheques and had not contributed to our retirement funds since April 2020,” Motha alleged.

He added that they received an SMS to inform them that no 13th cheque would be paid and said this was part of their employment contracts. There were other reasons for the strike too. He believes that, “the new management came with a mandate to change the terms and conditions in their contracts without engaging with the employees or the unions.”

The changes, he alleged, affected benefits such as medical aid and long-service benefits. Motha said some permanent employees’ contracts were changed to flexi-permanent and there was an issue with their annual leave as well.

After two years an employee has the right to 28 days leave a year, but in the new contract this has been changed to 21 days.”

The workers were unhappy because according to Motha, their contracts stated that the employee and the company would both contribute towards the employees’ retirement funds. But the employees were allegedly never engaged to discuss the matter and the company just stopped paying.

Another issue that was brought up was the number of hours the employees are allowed to work per week.

“During lockdown they asked us to come in for a certain amount of hours because it was lockdown. We as employees understood about Covid-19 and not normal operations, so we were willing to work fewer hours. Now they want us to continue to work fewer hours indefinitely, and the company thinks this is right because we accepted it during lockdown.”

Motha said the union has always been available to engage with their employers but was not engaged.

The News reached out to Silverstar who responded to these issues by saying, “Silverstar can confirm that on Thursday, 4 February 2021, 40 members of the team belonging to FOSAWU engaged in a protected strike.

Our management team is currently in discussions with union representatives to try and keep the strike as short as possible. At this moment in time, we are not at liberty to say what they are striking for as this may hinder the discussions with the union that are currently under way.

“We would like to assure our guests that this strike has minimal impact to the operations of Silverstar and will continue to offer all visitors a safe environment to enjoy the different entertainment offerings.”