My Life on this planet.

The conflict between the staff and the management of Delhaize continues. This article shows why the staff, together with the unions, may be right. After all, the profit margins of the stores are less today than they used to be. The retail landscape is changing dramatically. People now regularly buy smaller quantities instead of once a week. For example, it appears that shops managed by Delhaize have limited opening hours, such as not being open on Sundays, when many people go shopping these days. The reason? The staff must be paid extra on Sundays. Evening work must also be paid extra. People now also buy via websites while products are delivered to their homes. This is even promoted by Delhaize, as a result of which people go less to stores, and therefore stores have less income. Since the profit margins are less, it will also be more difficult for the self-employed to make the business profitable, especially since Delhaize is not cheap. An example is Snickers which can be up to 55% m...

Example: South Africa and its mines. The world's biggest platinum producer, Anglo American Platinum or Amplats, fired 12,000 South African miners when they were on strike for higher wages. A few weeks before, 34 people died during strikes at Lonmin, another mine. How would one describe these managers? Are they good? I don't think so: Their employees are unhappy and strike because they say they earn too little for the dangerous work they do. And as I understand it, life in South Africa is becoming more expensive and thus people need more money.  Most of the managers live far away and earn enormous amounts of money, therefore they do not know (or bother to know) prices are increasing in South Africa and thus life becomes more difficult for everyone, including miners who have a dangers job (to understand the bad working conditions of gold miners, search the web for pictures). Three weeks of strikes cost the company about 700m rand ($82m; £51m) in revenue. Indeed, n...