CWAO IN THE NEWS

For interviews, please contact:
SWF contact person Lengana Mnisi on 083 729 6560

On 10 October 2025, the Simunye Workers Forum officially lodged a complaint against Dischem DC at the Equality Court. The complaint comes after workers raised serious concerns about violations of their dignity, privacy, and basic human rights.

Dischem DC management is humiliating and dehumanising workers every day. Two main issues are at the centre of this Equality Court complaint:

1. DISCRIMINATORY LUNCH-TIME “PASS-OUT” RULE

Dischem is still forcing workers to ask for permission to go buy fruit from the vendors at the gate during their own lunch break. Workers are trapped inside the warehouse unless they succeed in being granted a pass out. This practice of forcing workers to provide a reason for leaving the warehouse to take lunch in their own time is discriminatory. Why must adult workers explain themselves like children? Why must workers be “approved” to take a lunch break? This rule violates Dischem workers' freedom and dignity. We demand this rule be scrapped immediately! We have asked the Equality Court to rule on this.

2. BODY SEARCHES THAT AMOUNT TO SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND ASSAULT

A few months ago, the SWF highlighted Dischem DC's abusive practices of forcing workers to plead to go out at lunchtime, banning workers from collecting money for deceased workers' funerals and banning workers from placing photos of deceased colleagues on noticeboards.

Since then, the company has taken its revenge on workers by subjecting them to the most barbaric of body searches.

Picture this: after every shift, workers are forced to line up, raise one leg and put their foot onto a metal bar. They must stand like that while security guards do a body search and manhandle their private parts. The Simunye Workers Forum is engaging attorneys to see if criminal charges of sexual assault could be brought.

This is not a routine search — this is sexual harassment. This is abuse. This is an assault on workers' bodies and dignity.

Dischem DC has no right to allow anyone to touch workers' private parts in the name of “security”. These practices are humiliating and completely unacceptable. The workers of Dischem DC are not goods in a warehouse. They are human beings! We have also asked the Equality Court to rule on this.

Category: PRESS RELEASE | LABOUR RIGHTS