week 6: The Strike

Week 6 was supposed to be about preparing for my next big client coming into town: a hydraulic and pneumatic tool company from Pennsylvania, however a strike had started in Johannesburg by the NUMSA group which consists of unionized members of industries that my client was looking to target. The strike was primarily over wages and paid time off, but by Wednesday it seemed like it might drag on for quite awhile. The contacts I was making with companies the client wished to have meetings with was not gong smoothly; some didn't want to preform any new business with the strike going on, others couldn't afford to do business with so much money being lost, and others simply closed their doors and were waiting for a deal to be struck. The main reaction I was getting from the CEOs and CAOs of these companies was that the union was asking for more than the companies could possibly afford and were stuck at a deadlock. This was proving to be a major obstacle for me and so I went to my supervisor and filled him in on the developments. We has a meeting with the CEO of the client company and discussed our options. We agreed to delay the trip a week and see how the strike shook out, hopefully with an agreement being met and then meetings could be made.