The poor pavlova: Woolworths hit by social media abuse over ‘racist’ job ads

Retail brand Woolworths found itself the target of a virtual storm of social media hate recently after posting what users are calling “racist” job ads on its website. The latest victim (aside from its social media management team) seems to be a pavlova recipe.

Users have taken to the South African company’s Facebook page to complain about the company’s policy, announce they will be boycotting their stores and to suggest that its Facebook fans rather switch to supporting its competitors. Posts on unrelated topics like a video of how to make strawberry pavlova have been inundated with comments like “Putting a little bit of strawberries and cream on your mess won’t make up!” and “How did you make this without using the WHITE of the eggs?” Other users commented on the possible effect the negative publicity was having on the company’s (sinking) share price.

Some of Woolworths’ job adverts state that the company is only seeking to hire non-white applicants for certain positions. Employment regulations in the country require any company that employs over 50 people to structure its workforce according to race, gender and disability.

The chain has previously responded to the allegations on its Facebook page, saying:

Over the past few days, we’ve been accused of racist employment practices. We’d like to state the facts:

• Like all South African companies, Woolworths has a role to play in transformation. For this reason, SOME positions (where there is under-representation) are designated for EE groups.
• The designated groups are Blacks, Coloureds, Indians, women and people with disability.
• As per the Employment Equity Act of 1998, Woolworths is expected, like all SA companies with more than 50 employees, to plan our workforce by race, gender and disability.
• Our workforce is diverse and includes people of all races (Black, White, Coloured, Indian), gender and disability.

We appreciate the value diversity brings to our business and the need to contribute to levelling the playing fields for certain groups of South Africa’s population.

This isn’t the first time the company has had to respond to negative attention on social media; its Halaal hot cross buns caused a fuss back in March.

Update:

Woolworths has disabled its Facebook wall, citing hate speech.