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Johannesburg – Retail group Massmart [JSE:MSM] is to lay off 261 workers in its Massdiscounters division, which includes Game and Dion Wired.
In a statement released on Tuesday afternoon, Massmart said because of the group's investment in regional distribution centres, new technology and the consolidation of workflows, a number of positions have been made redundant. Letters of retrenchment have been issued to affected employees in Gauteng.
Massmart corporate affairs executive Brian Leroni said the move was the culmination of a process which began on January 7 this year, when management started talks on these initiatives with employees and labour union the South African Commercial Catering and Allied Workers Union (Saccawu).
He said the number of affected employees then was 1 500, but the actual number of workers faced with job cuts was around half that number.
The re-engineering and restructuring process was initiated in 2008.
It includes the recent opening of a 19 500m² regional distribution centre in Cape Town to service 18 stores in the Western and Eastern Cape, and the current construction of a similar centre of 70 000 m² in Germiston.
Massmart said the new Cape Town distribution centre showed significant receiving improvement. This meant that Game and Dion Wired stores needed fewer receiving personnel.
Leroni said after disagreements between Massmart and Saccawu, the trade union informed the company that it planned strike action unless the re-engineering exercise was halted unconditionally.
According to Saccawu's correspondence, it plans a protest march for June 10.
Leroni said management approached discussions on the basis that retrenchment would be a last resort and that the company would attempt to find ways to minimise the impact of the re-engineering process, but Saccawu declined those propositions.
The company proposed a flexible model that would significantly reduce the number of contemplated retrenchments if the team agreed to flexible working hours, a flexible working week and flexible job functions.
- Fin24.com
In a statement released on Tuesday afternoon, Massmart said because of the group's investment in regional distribution centres, new technology and the consolidation of workflows, a number of positions have been made redundant. Letters of retrenchment have been issued to affected employees in Gauteng.
Massmart corporate affairs executive Brian Leroni said the move was the culmination of a process which began on January 7 this year, when management started talks on these initiatives with employees and labour union the South African Commercial Catering and Allied Workers Union (Saccawu).
He said the number of affected employees then was 1 500, but the actual number of workers faced with job cuts was around half that number.
The re-engineering and restructuring process was initiated in 2008.
It includes the recent opening of a 19 500m² regional distribution centre in Cape Town to service 18 stores in the Western and Eastern Cape, and the current construction of a similar centre of 70 000 m² in Germiston.
Massmart said the new Cape Town distribution centre showed significant receiving improvement. This meant that Game and Dion Wired stores needed fewer receiving personnel.
Leroni said after disagreements between Massmart and Saccawu, the trade union informed the company that it planned strike action unless the re-engineering exercise was halted unconditionally.
According to Saccawu's correspondence, it plans a protest march for June 10.
Leroni said management approached discussions on the basis that retrenchment would be a last resort and that the company would attempt to find ways to minimise the impact of the re-engineering process, but Saccawu declined those propositions.
The company proposed a flexible model that would significantly reduce the number of contemplated retrenchments if the team agreed to flexible working hours, a flexible working week and flexible job functions.
- Fin24.com
