Sasol faces shutdown over black empowerment scheme

Trade union Solidarity is threatening a total shutdown on Thursday at Sasol over the petrochemical firm’s empowerment scheme.

The scheme is believed to be offering certain shares exclusively to black staff.

Solidarity says the strike action will begin with picketing on Monday and culminate into a shutdown.

The union is demanding that Sasol’s share ownership scheme be extended to white staff as well.

Chief Executive for Solidarity, Dirk Hermann says they will also approach the Labour Court in this regard.

Hermann says, “If you totally exclude a certain group of your employees, that will lead to estrangement. That’s simply not acceptable, Sasol simply goes too far if it comes to empowerment in this specific case. They can’t afford to lose any worker at this stage, especially not 6300 highly skilled workers. So this will have a definite influence on production.”