'Clover has gone too far'

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http://www.finance24.com/articles/default/display_article.asp?Nav=ns&ArticleID=1518-24_1685614

"Trade union Solidarity has claimed that dairy giant Clover South Africa plans to save approximately R100m in personnel expenses this year. Solidarity puts the final retrenchment figure anywhere between 400 and 1 000 employees.

The trade union claimed that the retrenchments come shortly after top management pocketed R62m in share profits after having sold their Clover shares back to the company last year."

Now where have we seen this before?
 
adlo said:
Wait, what is the problem here and isn't this off topic?
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The problem is 'share profit management', euphemistically put. Not off-topic, as this is tantamount to more-or-less the same thing that SBC/Tintana did in Telkrap. Very bluntly put, this is nothing more than theft, IMHO. Only way to fight this kind of subtle corruption is through consumer pressure, as suggested by Weasel...
 
I absolutely agree. Stop buying Clover products. And don't just stop, make sure they know we've stopped supporting them and why.
 
Do they (Clover) even know how much dairy we ADSL users use in a month? More than 50000 litres I can assure you. Probably more if you take a total yoghurt, milk (and so forth) mix of products.

Dont mess with us Clover! We will simply get our white moustaches somehwere else! Calcium is a drug of choice for people with brains. Unless your are lactoce intollerant or love soya!

:D
 
Okay, I'm nor good ad finances, please explain. These okes sell their shares back to clover for X rand. If clover made a profit on those shares, surely they made a loss, and the profit would equal their loss ? Or not ?
 
62 mil for top management.. *man* im in the wrong business..

The employees in the firing line may as well move over to another company and share
some secrets aye.. or start their own company and squash Clover.
 
It depends on how they write it into there books, etc, depends if the directors took share bonues, etc

Ok,

1. Everyone here write to clover and bitch

2. Stop buying thier products, I will find an email of the pr/marketing department.

[email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected] ; [email protected]

Clover owns the following

# Parin Park (Pty) Ltd
# Saclo Properties (Pty) Ltd
# Sacca (Pty) Ltd
# Petran Investments (Pty) Ltd
# Laktokom (Pty) Ltd
# Salpen (Pty) Ltd
# Addington Beach Developments (Pty) Ltd
# Atlanta Trust (Pty) Ltd
# Ansteys Beach Developments (Pty) Ltd
# Clover Dairies (Pty) Ltd
# Clover Dairies (Zululand) (Pty) Ltd
# Dolphin Dairies (Pty) Ltd
# Estcourt Milk Processors (Pty) Ltd
# La Campania (Pty) Ltd
# McDougall Investments (Pty) Ltd
# The Model Dairy (Pty) Ltd
# NCD Bophuthatswana (Pty) Ltd
# Noordwes Vervaardigers (Pty) Ltd
# Stand 53 Witkop (Pty) Ltd
# Huminduff Investments (Pty) Ltd
# Stellenburg Cheese (Pty) Ltd
# Playtime Products (Pty) Ltd
 
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Wait a minute, there are 2 issues here:

1) These okes sell their shares and then get a huge bonus (based on share profits?)
2) Some people are going to get retrenched

Maybe I'm stupid but I still don't see what is wrong with any of the 2. I mean, if you make a big profit, you should get a bonus. And if you have to many people working for you, you should get rid of them. AFAIK there is nothing wrong with making a profit, the bigger the better.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to take anybody on, but I honestly don't see what is wrong with this, except if the bonus was a result of selling the shares back to Clover.

????
 
i think y'all are a bunch of accidental socialists or "communists of convenience" - if you are going to start an its over for clover campaign (which i would support) there are many other companies doing the same on large, medium and small scales according to the dictates of unfettered capitalist greed. all of these guys deserve to be boycotted.

stories like this are in the news every other day wihtout raising the collective MB eyebrow
 
What Clover does / doesn't do is the least of my problems...

I tend to agree with you there Dominic & RolandD, in the MBB context I prefer to hammer Telkomonopoly to concentrate on affordable Broadband, which is way more important to me than which brand of milk & cheese I buy - mostly based on which is cheaper @ the supermarket ;).
 
The question that needs to be asked is this. Is it fair to chop your labor after they helped you make profits? I am a capitalist at heart, but it just doesn’t make sense from a social responsibility point of view to axe those very people who worked to get the profits. If the company didn’t perform it would be a good excuse, but the latter seems to be the underlying truth here.

If Clover can prove that these retrenchments will be covered by re-employment somewhere else in the industry then I don’t have a problem. In a proper market system retrenchments somewhere in the system gets cancelled by employment elsewhere. Perhaps we should step back and have a look at what is happening here. I agree with IC that our focus should be Telkom, but we should have empathy with other industries.

As a last thought, I would like to point that you cannot have a successful company without the whole of the structure working, as it should. Good management cannot exist without good employees. Imagine how confused employees in our country must be now. If you don't perform, you get the axe. If you do, you might get the axe anyway. Damned if you do and damned if you don't....
 
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I was paying my tithe to Hellkom today at one of their Hellish Hellkom Shops and I witnessed someone freaking out horribly.

The poor guy was trying to run his business - he has (or had) two lines and both have been giving **** for two weeks and Hellkom had done nothing. He was trying to keep his cool - you could see he was at the end of his tether.

He was chatting with one of the "helpdesk" Orcs and finally told the guy to get him the manager on the phone - but first, he got through to an unfreindly Orc who refused to give her name - it was really funny, I was in a queue of about 10 people and it was our entertainment while we waited.

I give this guy huge kudos, he wouldn't get transfered until he got the Orcs name and the Orc wouldn't give the her name to him, even though, by law, she has to.

This guy was doing his nut - he wasn't swearing, but he was close.
The Orcs in the Hellkom shop thought it was damn funny - and I couldn't blame them, considering their jobs are on the line 24/7 - it could be them who are retrenched next.

The whole place kinda got this solidarity thing going and everyone in the queues were rallying at how cr@ppy Hellkom were.

I mentioned that many people call Telkom Hellkom and got some wry smiles and laughs.

Eventually - which brings me back onto subject - I informed people how Hellkom made 4 billion rands profit and rentrenched 3000 people last year. Some people knew, others were shocked, the Orcs were quiet.

No dought, fear rules at Hellkom - the employees are not guaranteed any kind of job security or future and have to face the wrath of disgruntled customers every day.


Totally off topic, is it possible to be "gruntled" ? - if your disgruntled, meaning your upset, would it be plausible to say that a happy person is Gruntled ?

Hmmm - things to ponder on when your having a drink or 3 ...
 
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antowan said:
...Is it fair to chop your labor after they helped you make profits? I am a capitalist at heart, but it just doesn’t make sense from a social responsibility point of view to axe those very people who worked to get the profits. If the company didn’t perform it would be a good excuse, but the latter seems to be the underlying truth here.

...In a proper market system retrenchments somewhere in the system gets cancelled by employment elsewhere...we should have empathy with other industries.

...Imagine how confused employees in our country must be now. If you don't perform, you get the axe. If you do, you might get the axe anyway. Damned if you do and damned if you don't....
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Antowan, totally :)
(btw apologies for chopping up your reply - I hope I have kept the essence intact).

I think empathy is important, and Clover does not appear to be demonstrating Social Responsibility, and I do feel for the employees that will be left high & dry after their retrenchment money dries up.

Another thing to mention is that despite retrenchments being commonplace nowadays (as mentioned by Dominic), the reason why the man in the street usually doesn't take notice, is that they themselves are trying to keep their heads above water. Also, there are sooo many unions in SA, and usually they tend to champion the causes of the workers that would not otherwise have a voice.

I suppose I will think twice about buying Clover when I next look at prices of various products in the supermarket (btw I normally don't buy Clover products anyway as it is, don't have any specific reason though - just what's on special, priced better at the time).
bb_matt said:
...
Totally off topic, is it possible to be "gruntled" ? - if your disgruntled, meaning your upset, would it be plausible to say that a happy person is Gruntled ?

Hmmm - things to ponder on when your having a drink or 3 ...
Click to expand...
Those 3 drinks sounds gr8, enjoy :).

On a related note, gormless...is there a case for telling someone they are with gorm :D.
 
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