Why a staff share scheme could help Pick n Pay

Picture: FM Collage

Pick n Pay gutted staff benefits to save R500m a year. Workers proposed getting shares in return, but battered shareholders may balk

No doubt for both sides it was an existential battle. In one corner was Pick n Pay management, utterly convinced it had to extract R500m of annualised costs and create a “sustainable labour model” that would help drag the company back onto a profit trajectory. The just-released interim results, with a trading loss after leases of an eye-watering R1.1bn, were an unnecessary reminder that extreme action was needed.

In the opposing corner, the South African Commercial Catering & Allied Workers’ Union (Saccawu) was determined not to add any Pick n Pay workers to the rapidly growing ranks of the unemployed. The workers were facing a devastating scenario, with the most recent stats showing that 345,000 people were added to the army of the jobless in the second quarter, taking the total to 8.5-million.