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Cape Town - At lunch on the first day of the Numsa congress in Cape Town on Monday, one thing seemed markedly different from other large, union gatherings: the menu. It was decidedly upmarket, featuring both cold and hot buffets followed by deserts. But no pap and wors.
That grand staple of union gatherings, mealie meal, chakalaka and boerewors was nowhere in evidence in a carefully balanced haute cuisine offering of protein and carbs that had been agreed in advance. But the meat was certainly there in the hot buffet: thinly sliced and perfectly roasted fillet steak, all 300kg of it. Along with chicken and fish in similar quantities.
Then there were copious quantities on the cold side, ranging from mini spinach quiches to chicken and salad wraps, olives, salads and feta cheese. But the absence of the union staples was soon noticed.
“On Tuesday, we were told we had to have pap, chakalaka and wors,” said chief sous chef Sibo Gcelu. Urgent orders went out and, by Wednesday, 40kg of mealie meal arrived, along with the first delivery of 60kg of spicy sausage. In the end, more than 300kg of boerewors was consumed in the last two days of the congress.
“These things happen,” said Gcelu philosophically, “but we get used to it.”
What many of the kitchen and waiting staff admitted they did not get used to, was the unannounced delays in meal times. In this they shared the experience of staff at many large union gatherings where debates, discussions and often rambling monologues push mealtimes back by an hour or more.
It is tempting to ask, in situations like this: what about the workers? Those who slave in the kitchens, set out the hot and cold buffets, and then have to wait, often having to return food to the kitchens to warm or to chill.
“Actually, it is the cold buffet that is the biggest problem,” said Gcelu. “The warming dishes can keep the hot food to the right temperature for some time, but the cold buffet must be kept at under 10 degrees.”
In the veritable rabbit warren of passages, storerooms, lifts and stairways in the basement of the cavernous convention centre, there are three large kitchens: cold, hot and pastry with another 12 satellite kitchens in other parts of the building to cater for smaller functions.
Permanent catering staff comprise 16 individuals, but for an event such as the Numsa congress, with some 1 300 delegates and guests, more than 70 additional staff have to be brought in. And here, nothing has changed from union gatherings over the years: the staff are contract workers employed by labour broking companies — and none appear to be unionised. The same applies at venues such as Midrand’s Gallagher Estate, owned by the union backed Hosken Consolidated Investments (HCI) and a favoured venue for Cosatu gatherings.
So while there will often be militant declarations at union conferences about the need to unionise the ununionised and to defeat labour brokerage, the situation at the conference venues tends to go unnoticed. It would be interesting to know how many of the Numsa officials or delegates were aware that casual kitchen staff who helped make their congress a success, earn as little as R17.60 an hour while having to pay up to R40 a day to travel to and from work.
These are workers — usually women — who sometimes manage only two or three days work a week. Others, with better qualifications and positions, and who earn R27 an hour, admitted that they can rely on only four days work a week. This amounts to little more than R1 000 a week from which must be deducted travel and other costs, making for less, in fact, than the now proposed minimum wage of R3 500 a month.
But at least the Numsa delegates and their guests ate up large. At an average lunch or dinner, hundreds of killos of meat, fish and vegetables were consumed. When chicken kebabs featured on the menu, there were 2 000 of them, along with 540kg of chicken thighs and 2 000 mini quiches.
Over the four days of the congress, the kitchens used 200 litres of cooking oil, 62.5kg of cake flour and 60kg of butter. On one meal alone, 80kg of beetroot, 110kg of cubed butternut and 150kg of sliced potato was used. And 4 000 Danish pastries completed that menu.
“But there wasn’t much left over from any of the meals,” said kitchen administrator Keta Holmes. Any surplus food from functions is passed on by the convention centre to five charities that feed the hungry. Little goes to waste.
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