- About 5,800 Tongaat workers went on strike for almost four weeks and won 6%, backdated to April. Six strike days are paid.
- Tongaat’s emergency funding ended on 30 September and no extension is known. It leaves the stock exchange on 3 November.
Tongaat Hulett workers won a 6% pay rise last month after a strike of almost four weeks. Now their employer is leaving the stock exchange, and the state funding that covered daily costs has passed its end date.
The strike began on 17 August. Workers wanted 13%, plus a R1,000 transport allowance and a R1,500 housing allowance. Employers offered 5.4%.
The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union said 5,778 workers were on strike at Tongaat alone. They went back on 9 September with 6%, backdated to April. Back pay was due by 18 September, and employers agreed to pay six of the strike days.
The settlement as reported does not mention the transport or housing allowances. Petrol, meanwhile, went up by R3.33 a litre for 95 on 7 October.
Tongaat has been in business rescue, a court-supervised process, since October 2022. A state-owned lender, the Industrial Development Corporation, gave it a R2.5-billion facility that covered costs such as salaries. That facility reached its end date on 30 September, and no extension has been announced.
The practitioners running the rescue told News24 on 2 October that operations continue as normal. On Monday, the company said the stock exchange will remove its shares on 3 November.
The shares have not traded since 2022, and shareholders get no payout. The company says a restructuring, a sale or a winding-up is still possible. Each ends with Tongaat no longer running the operating businesses.
In June, Vision Group chairman Robert Gumede said there would be no wholesale retrenchments and that factory jobs were secure. No takeover date has been announced.
