Casino workers down chips

Casino workers down chips
ZWANGA MUKHUTHU

ABOUT 130 employees of the Hemingways Casino stopped work at the weekend following a wage dispute between their union and the company.

The casino brought in staff from Queen’s Casino in Queenstown to ensure continuity in operations, the Future of South African Workers’ Union (Fosawu) said yesterday.

Fosawu represents the striking workers, who are demanding a nine percent wage increase while the company is offering six percent.

Fosawu spokesman Big Boy Motha said the wage demands, which had been ongoing since June, were just the “tip of the iceberg”.

He said employees had a long list of other crucial demands.

These included workers needing permanent contracts, equal pay among employees whether black or white, guaranteed basic wages, and job security.

Motha said the strike would continue until management met the union’s demands.

Yesterday, the casino said in a media statement that its employees were among the highest paid in the industry, while they enjoyed favourable terms, conditions and benefits.

However, Motha said the employees, who were the company’s “money making machines”, were currently being paid at an hourly rate.

“The employee can never know how much they are going to get at the end of the month,” Motha said.

As a result, he said, the union had also demanded a minimum of 140hours a month for its members instead of the company’s current 96hours.

“If a worker is at home as a result of sickness, he or she earns nothing,”

He said job security among staff members was also not guaranteed.

“Time and again the company dismisses workers simply because they stand up for themselves when being abused by customers who have just lost money while gambling.”

Motha said the company also had wage discrepancies among its staff.

“Some of our white colleagues are being paid more than the black colleagues although they are doing the same job.”

He said the union, through one of the negotiations, had advised the company to revise its decision on paying high salaries to three white colleagues who were fresh from training.

“There were employees who had [joined the company] many years before the three but were still being paid meagre salaries.”

He said the union was aware of “certain departments within the company that still practise wage discrepancies”.

He said the company was currently making use of Queens Casino employees from Queenstown to stay afloat.