In solidarity with the poultry industry and its workers, the Food and Allied Workers Union (Fawu) will hold pickets at the Brazilian embassy in Pretoria and the consulate in Cape Town, to drive home the point about the extent of the negative impact that “dumped” chickens had on the sector.
The pickets come amid a poultry workers’ strike that entered a second week yesterday. About 535 out of 1 000 workers at 30 County Fair farms are demanding a wage increase of 13 percent, to at least R1 500 a week. Currently workers at the farms of County Fair, a subsidiary of Astral, say they take home about R600 a week.
According to Fawu, Astral has not put any offer on the table and has not held any wage negotiations with the union.
Last month Astral announced plans to suspend wage increases throughout its operations.
The company’s chief executive, Chris Schutte, previously said Astral had taken a decision to freeze salaries to weather high input costs and the high volume imports of poultry products from Brazil.
The move was to prevent further job cuts, after 150 jobs were terminated by August.
Theo Delport, the managing director of Astral’s poultry division, said yesterday that the company was not in a position to discuss the offer through the media.
He said Astral had not heard anything from the union and that its doors were open for negotiations.
“It is obvious that the workers are not happy with what we have put on the table and that is why they are on strike,” he said.
Delport said the chicken industry was facing a crisis of high maize prices and a flood of European and Brazilian chicken imports.
Fawu general secretary Katishi Masemola confirmed that the strike was at County Fair and Early Bird farms, both of which are part of Astral’s poultry division.
He said according to Fawu’s records, about 1 900 workers were on strike. “Workers were demanding 13 percent and were also complaining that not all managers had taken a salary freeze. The salary freeze plan does not sit well with the workers,” he added.
Masemola said the workers’ wages were the third or fourth major component of Astral’s operational costs.
“From this perspective workers are not unreasonable to demand wage increases.”
However, he said whether the 13 percent was reasonable or not was subject to further discussions. “For an industry that is [under] so much strain the offer could be far lower than the 13 percent.”
Brazil exports premium chicken breasts to the US and then the remaining chicken pieces are sent to South Africa.
“This is how Brazil manages to sell these chicken pieces at [a] cheaper price,” he said.
Astral said its operations had not yet been affected by the strike and it had arranged for casual workers to fill in while permanent employees were on strike. Delport said the majority of Astral’s customers had already received their festive season stock and that operations were unaffected.
Gareth Lloyd-Jones, the managing director of Ecowize, said the strike was a symptom of the impact of the unprecedented cheaper poultry products, which were being “dumped” in the South African market.
When “dumping” a product, the producer was simply looking to dispose of the goods and recover input costs.
“Poultry products that are dumped into the South African market can be sold at a much lower price than local products.
“The biggest challenge was that quality checks on these products were usually not done, posing a health hazard to consumers.”