Operation Dudula has issued a seven-day ultimatum to Hermanus employers, demanding the replacement of foreign nationals in local workplaces with South African nationals. The seven-day deadline now hangs over employers in Hermanus after the anti-migrant organisation and registered political party demanded that South African nationals be hired by local workplaces.

In a peaceful protest led by some of the organisation’s leaders on Friday 31 July, Operation Dudula presented a memorandum to local business owners. Hermanus Times was in attendance.

Priority to be given to locas

The memorandum called for priority to be given to locals while establishing the basis of these demands on South African labour laws, the Employment Services Act and the Immigration Act. These included the Immigration Act 13 of 2002.

“Every employer who wishes to employ a foreign national must do so only [on] a transfer skill basis or unless it’s a rare skill,” said one of the protest leaders while addressing the owner of a local fish and chips.

According to the protest leader, “whether a foreign national is documented to stay [and] if a foreign national is here because he has a passport or a visa, that still does not qualify that foreigner to work in the fishery”.

The memorandum was subsequently signed by the respective employers and protest leaders.

Moreover, Operation Dudula called for local businesses to accept the CVs of local nationals within the proposed seven days which will be delivered to them by regional leaders of the organisation.

Speaking to Hermanus Times, a Zwelihle local shared that after losing his job during the Covid-19 pandemic, he never truly recovered. He also claimed that one of his former colleagues, who is of foreign descent, got a job in 2021 after taking a pay cut.

“I worked with [my colleague] and when we lost our jobs, he got a new job at a panel beater in Cape Town and he is struggling to even pay for electricity because he took a paycut,” he said.

The father of two added that he has “the skills to work there too, but I can’t take a pay cut because I have a family to feed and the money is below minimum wage. How is that not exploiting someone and their skills?”.

Protest leaders confirmed to Hermanus Times that the regional leaders will return to the local businesses who received the memorandums within seven days. Employers will have to prove that they have taken the memorandum demands into account and that jobs have been provided for local nationals.