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Ryan Rheeder (left), BMW dealership manager, and Ashraf Wallace, after-sales service manager.
PHOTO: Jenni Evans / News24
- In the immediate aftermath of the nationwide Clicks closure, the EFF organized a picket at a Cape Town BMW dealership after a report that it was seeking a white candidate for a position.
- The picket ended with an agreement that the EFF and SMG would meet next week on the matter and that there would be no more pickets.
- BMW SMG said it had nothing to do with the advertisement and was the innocent victim of an unsolicited offer from a recruitment company to fill a position.
As the EFF’s national closure of Clicks comes to an end, another picket began on Friday, this time outside a BMW dealership in Cape Town following a news report of an ad to fill a vacancy, preferably by a white man or woman.
A small group of people stood in front of the BMW SMG dealership in Century City with signs that read: “Stop Employing Only White Men” and “BMW Stop SMG Racism.”
“We have come to BMW SMG about a racist ad that was placed by the Cape Town branch and we are pushing the agenda of transforming our society to address the issues,” said Yusuf Joseph, a member of EFF, as police monitored the protest.
The former MPL provincial legislature said:
It may seem petty in terms of racism, but if we don’t address these issues it will become a boiling point within our different communities.
He said the Sean McCarthy Group (SMG) and the EFF would meet next week to discuss the matter and that the provincial leadership would attend.
The distributor’s director, Ryan Rheeder, approached News24 at the location and said that the information in the public domain about the problem was incorrect.
“We are an innocent party here,” he said. “We are not racists.”
‘There was no work to fill’
Rheeder said the company’s chief marketing officer had resigned and emigrated, and an outsourcing agency had learned of this and seen an opportunity to do business by taking the position.
“There was no job to fill,” said Rheeder, who went out of his way to say the company was not racist, with 35% of its staff white and specialized training programs underway for black youth.
He said that if there is any protest, it should be at the Julian Schlemmer and Associates recruiting firm.
Schlemmer told News24 that comments on the matter should come from his attorney. News24 made several attempts to obtain the details of Schlemmer’s attorney, but was unsuccessful. When News24 receives your attorney’s details and comment, it will be added.
In a statement dated 2 September, the EFF demanded an investigation by BMW South Africa and the Department of Commerce and Industry in the wake of the Mail & Guardian article.
EFF provincial chairman Melikhaya Xego told News24 on Friday that the company initially did not go public to distance itself from the claim in the article, hence the protest.
However, they were satisfied that on Friday the company immediately “humiliated” itself and agreed to a meeting.
READ | New Law Proposes Detailed Employment Equity Goals for South Africa: What You Need to Know
He said the party was handling the BMW issue differently than Clicks, because Clicks chose to go to court first to seek an injunction against its members.
For this reason, the party would not go directly to more protests at the dealership just yet.
“They responded and said ‘Let’s talk,'” he said.
Meanwhile, SMG has forwarded the initial media report to the Press Ombud and intends to take legal action against the recruiting company.
This comes after a massive Clicks shutdown following a TRESemmé ad that the company acknowledged was racist, showing black models with “dry and damaged hair” and white models representing “normal hair.”
The EFF believes the matter was closed after a meeting with Unilever, but the closure has left many companies nervous about similar consequences.
In South Africa, the Employment Equity Act sets out the ways that companies must comply with measures to address the racial injustices of apartheid and undo discrimination against blacks.
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