After a fiery altercation that resulted in the Levyvale Spar in Kariega being closed for more than two hours last week, the EFF and owner Paul Engler met on Wednesday to finally put the matter to bed with a proverbial handshake.
Despite the resolutions over the employee dispute about bonuses, Engler said he still felt the whole episode could have been avoided if the party had committed to meetings.
“I was first contacted by the EFF on December 26 and there was an exchange of emails on when we could meet,” Engler said.
He said he had made it clear that he had always responded to emails to set a date, the last being the Tuesday before the picket, but EFF leaders were a no-show.
Last Friday the store had to close when the party picketed outside, driving customers away.
Even though the demonstration was not violent, public order police rolled in to ensure minimum disturbance at the complex.
“That is my frustration with the EFF,” Engler said.
“While I immediately requested a meeting with them and the department of labour, they chose to ignore this and rather picket and then meet,” he said.
The EFF, however, has defended itself for not going to the meeting, saying they had expected to meet Engler on Monday, which was scheduled in the last email the party sent.
However, a reply provided to The Herald showed a request for rescheduling to the next day had been made.
Engler said the breakdown in the communication with the EFF had led to the confusion.
"[After the Tuesday meeting no-show] I sent another email asking if they would like to reschedule.
“They refused to meet and just said they will picket.
“My problem is that it comes across that we refused to meet, which we had no problem with because we are compliant,” he said.
EFF regional secretary Zanele Mali hit back at Engler, saying the party had sufficient exposure of its own.
“The EFF is loud enough on its own and does not need a PR stunt of a small shop,” Mali said.
She said while they had met with the HR department since the week before, in all instances they had been to the store and were told Engler was not there.
“Staff would keep telling us he reappeared as soon as we left,” she said.
On the issues that matter, the two sides did manage to find common ground.
But disagreements arose about bonus recalculations.
They were originally calculated on a pro-rata basis from when Engler took over in March.
After the backdating, many staff were unhappy about the paid amounts.
Engler said they had managed to show how the recalculations were made, which in fact showed that 90% of the staff were overpaid.
Mali said this was a failure from the HR department to communicate clearly the implications of the change, which had led to the upheaval among employees.
The store committed to ensuring that every staff member would get a thorough explanation of deductions made on their bonuses.
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