TEXTILE COMPANY WANTS ATUSWA OUT

MBABANE – Swazi Africa Textiles (Pty) Ltd has accused ATUSWA of allegedly harassing its management by demanding access to employees of the company.

According to the proprietor of the company, Grant Reid, is because the Amalgamated Trade Union of Swaziland (ATUSWA) was granted an award by the court which gave it power to demand entry into the premises of the company to meet its employees.
Swazi Africa Textiles, which is represented by Labour Management Consultant Musa Hlophe, has taken ATUSWA to the Industrial Court seeking a rescission of the award. While the rescission application is being determined, Swazi Africa Textiles wants the court to suspend the operation of the award. The award was granted after ATUSWA took the company to court for an order compelling the latter to engage and bargain collectively with it in terms of a Recognition Agreement signed with SPRAWU.
ATUSWA also prayed for an order interdicting Swazi Africa Textiles from violating terms of the recognition agreement.

In the founding affidavit, Reid denied signing any recognition agreement with ATUSWA and authorising anyone in the company to do so. He also denied signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with ATUSWA which was allegedly presented by the union at a meeting on July 10, 2018. The MoU, according to Reid, was rejected by the company’s management, a decision he said he had conveyed to all parties during a meeting on July 3, 2018. Reid narrated that after he opened the business in July 2014, he learnt about an agreement that he supposedly had with SPRAWU. He denied that he had personally given permission for any agreement to be signed on his behalf. SPRAWU and other unions combined to form ATUSWA. Reid informed the court that in June 2018, he received a letter demanding that the management hold wages negotiations with ATUSWA. He alleged that they met with ATUSWA representatives later that month after which the union threatened to take the matter to CMAC.

Negotiations

“On July 3, 2018, we met with the representative of the respondent (ATUSWA) by the name of Bongani Ndzinisa, to begin the negotiations process only to discover that he had no proof that indeed the company had actually recognised the respondent in terms of the Industrial Relations Act of 2000,” submitted Reid.  He further stated that the meeting was therefore postponed so that ATUSWA could produce evidence of the alleged agreement. Reid alleged that it was discovered that Swazi Africa Textiles recognised SPRAWU and ATUSWA was like a federation which could not recruit individual employees from the shop floor. He said ATUSWA could recruit other recognised unions registered in terms of Section 27 of the Industrial Relations Act, and not individual employees. He submitted that ATUSWA decided to abort the meeting and allegedly threatened to report a dispute to CMAC, which they did on July 16, 2018. Reid told the court that ATUSWA allegedly delivered a letter of withdrawal of the dispute before the hearing that was set for July 30, 2018. The matter, according to Reid, was urgent because the award granted to ATUSWA, which is yet to respond to the allegations, entitled the company to negotiate with an entity it did not recognise.

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