The union said that it fully shares the South Africa Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Unions (Saccawu) view that Wal-Mart is one of the worst union-bashing employers in the world.
This follows Monday's announcement by Massmart that it had received a non-binding proposal from Wal-Mart Stores (Walmart) which could lead to Wal-Mart making a cash offer to acquire the entire issued share capital of Massmart for R148 per share, a deal that could lead to a R32 billion offer for the consumer goods distributor.
Quoting Saccawu, Cosatu said that Wal-Mart is a known anti-union company, which trains its managers to keep the workplaces union-free.
"By July 2008 the company faced more than 80 lawsuits in connection with wages, overtime and hours violations, most of it class actions, with more than 10 000 workers affected in many of the cases.
It currently faces the largest class action on discrimination of women with more than 1.5 million women workers being part of the action and it pays women less than men and women are less likely to be promoted than male workers," said Cosatu.
The union also said that Wal-Mart has been listed in Human Rights Watch reports for its aggressiveness of its anti-union activities and that it conducts illegal surveillance on its employees to root out any attempts at unionisation.
Cosatu said it was also worried about the impact that a Wal-Mart take-over would have on local distributors, suppliers and manufacturers.
"The company has become so powerful that it can dictate to suppliers the price they are prepared to pay for goods, this has led to many local suppliers, distributors and manufacturers collapsing, and has also led to the use of child labour and payment of poverty wages in countries such as Guatemala and Bangladesh," it said.
The union said that if the deal goes through, it could be a severe setback for the Proudly South African campaign to persuade retailers to procure products manufactured locally by firms that comply with minimum decent work standards.
Cosatu said it would support any move by Saccawu to refer the take-over to the Competition Commission or the Ministers of Economic Development and Trade and Industry, to ensure that the objectives of South Africa's developmental agenda are not undermined.
"Cosatu and Saccawu will fight against any erosion of hard-fought-for workers' rights and benefits. We will not tolerate the destruction of local procurement policies or the further decline of local manufacturing.
We call on all South Africans to support a campaign against the 'Walmartisation' of the retail sector," the union said.
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