Johannesburg - The Food and Allied Workers Union (Fawu) and its industry stakeholders would march to the European Union (EU) embassy in Pretoria on Wednesday to seek immediate intervention in the local poultry job loss crisis. This comes after Fawu led a delegation and met with the EU Commission's ambassador and trade counsellor following a protest march and petition against job losses handed to the EU Embassy in Pretoria in November.
South Africa's biggest chicken producer, RCL Foods, has already begun downsizing its chicken business unit by selling 15 of its 25 farms in Hammarsdale in KwaZulu-Natal and retrenching 1 350 workers to restore its profitability by limiting production.
RCL Foods further announced on Tuesday that its financial results for the six months ended December 31 would be materially impacted by the severe challenges faced by the local chicken industry due to dumped imports and high feed input costs.
Fawu, which has vowed to fight job losses in the domestic poultry industry, said marchers would gather at 11am in central Pretoria and proceed to the European Union embassy thereafter.
"The union wishes to raise awareness about the job loss crisis in EU countries and seeks immediate intervention from the Department of Trade and Industry for more protectionist measures in terms of trade deals to enhance the local poultry sector's competitiveness and guarantee its sustainability," Fawu spokesperson Dominique Martin said.
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"Local chicken production costs remain high compared to that of EU countries where farmers are heavily subsidised."
Last month, the Department of Trade and Industry said it had secured significant progress across a number of work-streams to develop a common response to the complex challenges facing the domestic poultry industry.
Government recently established a poultry sector task team to deal with the crisis in the domestic poultry industry.
The Task Team is comprised of representatives of the Department of Trade and Industry, the departments of economic development, agriculture, forestry and fisheries, as well as the Industrial Development Corporation.
The work-streams established by government's task team to process a range of possible short and longer-term interventions include trade measures, health and quality issues, competitiveness, industry growth and transformation, among others.