UPDATE: West pharmaceutical strike reaches fifth week

A strike by workers of a pharmaceutical company in the west of Pretoria has moved into its fifth week.

Workers from Transpharm, a subsidiary of Shoprite Holdings, stopped working, demanding that the company increase their pay from the current R4 500 a month to R12 500.

Transpharm is one of South Africa’s largest pharmaceutical wholesalers and distributors, supplying more than 30,000 pharmaceutical, surgical and veterinary products to hospitals, clinics and retail pharmacies.

By Thursday, workers were still on strike at the Transpharm building in Taljaard Street, Hermanstad, said general industries and workers union chairman of Tshwane branch Jan Magolego.

“At the moment we are waiting for two responses before the strike can be called off,” he said.

He said the first response is by the department of health, expected by the Friday deadline.

This follows after about 100 workers marched to the department on 19 September to “order” government to step in and see that their salaries were upped.

The union gave its memorandum of demands to health sector bargaining’s Maile Ngake.

Magolego said they were also awaiting a response from Transpharm’s CEO after a meeting on Monday.

“During the meeting, we made a couple of proposals for the strike to be called off,” he said.

READ MORE: West pharmacy workers strike still ongoing

“We are still waiting for feedback of the meeting.”

A non-striking worker who spoke to Rekord anonymously, said protesters apparently endangered their lives.

“The police needs to intervene daily,” she said.

“They make our lives hell.”

About two weeks ago, tensions ran high after workers were not paid for the period they were on strike.

Shots were fired by the police as protesters barricaded the road with rocks.

The worker said: “We were all chased out of here because our management just wanted us to get home safely.”

“Strikers were blocking the road and were violent. This was not the first time this has happened either.”

She said they damaged vehicles and intimidated workers and other passers-by.

In response to this, Magolego said the strike had been peaceful overall.

“I feel that the protest have been peaceful this far. The police are also monitoring the situation every day,” he said.

“The only time I think the protest got out of hand was two weeks ago when workers was not paid.”

The protest action in Pretoria has virtually shut down operations, costing Transpharm about R11 million every day.

Workers at the Cape Town branch joined the protest on 18 September.

In response, The Shoprite Group said they have received a notice from the union, representing a portion of the Transpharm employees, that the work stoppage underway at the pharmaceutical wholesaler and distribution centres, has been temporarily suspended.

The group said it has a long standing view that all workers are entitled to reasonable and decent working conditions and it believes that it offers market related salaries and its priority remains to resolve the matters discussed.

“We have always made an effort to base dealings with our employees on the principles of fairness and respect and in compliance with the provisions of prevailing labour legislation,” they said.

“We also strive to maintain amicable relations with labour unions who are sufficiently representative of our employees. We continue to work to be able to supply customers’ orders and deliveries as efficiently as possible in the circumstances and thank them in advance for their understanding. Contingency plans have been put in place to limit the impact on service levels and operations, and to mitigate any possible risks.”

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