Susan Shabangu came out all guns blazing this week, using words like racist, classist, unconstitutional and inhumane, to describe the treatment of seven store employees when they were busted for theft at the branch in Pelican Park recently.
The culprits, all women, were caught accepting tips from customers - which is against Shoprite policy.
The workers claim they were handcuffed to a rail in the backroom and then humiliated before their co-workers.
This before they were arrested and hauled to court on theft charges.
The minister was not impressed at all, calling it “violence against women”.
Shabangu also blasted their “slave wages of R2400 a month”.
Now, the wage issue is not really relevant to the argument here, but it is a good discussion for another day.
In Shoprite’s defence, their employment policy is clear - employees may not receive tips from customers.
The staff would have been aware of the rule, and would have known they were in the wrong.
Guilty as charged.
Whether this counts as theft, though, Munier isn’t convinced.
It’s not as if they were pickpocketing customers. They were given the money.
Coming back to company policy, Munier is pretty sure that nowhere in Shoprite’s protocol does it state that staff who are allegedly caught stealing should be cuffed and humiliated.
If this is in fact what happened to the ladies, Shoprite should come down hard on the staff who carried out these alleged acts of abuse.