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The Congress of South African Trade Union endorses the preliminary response of its affiliate, SACCAWU, to the ruling of the Competition Appeal Court (CAC) on the Appeal and Review applications against the decision of the Competition Tribunal which had approved the merger between Walmart and Massmart in June 2011.

While COSATU is disappointed that the CAC decided to allow the merger to proceed and continues to oppose Walmart’s entry into South Africa, we join SACCAWU in welcoming the order that :
§ The merged entity should ensure that there are no retrenchments based on the merged entity’s operational requirements in South Africa, resulting from the merger, for a period of two years;
§ The 503 Massmart employees who were retrenched in 2009 and 2010 must be reinstated;
§ All existing labour agreements by the merged entity must be honoured for a minimum period of three years;
§ A study must be commissioned to determine the most appropriate means, together with mechanisms by which local South African suppliers may be empowered to respond to the challenges posed by the merger and thus benefit.

COSATU and SACCAWU will respond in more details after studying the full ruling.