Fawu members march to union

Disgruntled members of the Food and Allied Workers Union (Fawu) in Polokwane marched to its provincial office last Wednesday to hand over a memorandum of grievances.
Members are accusing the union of not championing their interests, saying it does not want to fight their battles in the workplace. They further allege that the top officials are selfish, useless and have failed them dismally.
“We have been members of the union for quite a while and they have not helped us in anything. We asked them to help us in wage negotiations at our workplaces in 2009 and 2011 yet nothing happened. Some members have been temporary workers for a while and we asked the union to step in and help them to get permanent positions and they have failed us. We don’t know what to do because when we joined this union we thought it would help us in such situations,” aggrieved member Albert Matlala said.

Fawu Provincial Secretary, Nelson Semenya said they would look at the memorandum and respond accordingly within 14 working days.
“But we need to verify if some of these people are indeed Fawu members because we suspect that some just joined the march along the way,” Semenya said.

Story and photos: Herbert Rachuene
>>herbert@mailbox.co.za

Featured photo: Members of Fawu during their protest march.