South Africa’s Congress of South African Trade Unions threatens the mother of all boycotts against Walmart through its newly acquired African retailer Massmart. That may be, but I see an epic battle of labor as the real core of what is happening in Sub-Saharan Africa.

From the BBC:

Unions in South Africa have expressed concern, arguing that Wal-Mart is anti-union.

Wal-Mart has said it will respect contracts and is committed to working with unions.

South Africa’s powerful labour federation, Congress of South African Trade Unions, threatened the “mother of all boycotts” in response to the deal.

“We have empirical evidence from other countries where Wal-Mart is operating. It has never done anything for the workers,” said Sidumo Dlamini, Cosatu’s president.

Walmart has already acquiesced to state-run unions in China. Can it afford to live with COSATU or will it come down to a struggle where Walmart or COSATU must break?

Jeff Hess: Have Coffee Will Write.Walmart,Wal-Mart,

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 18th, 2011 at 1032 by Jeff Hess and is filed under Africa, Organized Labor, Walmart. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.