Johannesburg - About 3 000 employees at South Africa’s biggest grain processing and logistics companies may start a strike on Friday should an attempt to revive wage talks that collapsed be unsuccessful, their union said.
The Food and Allied Workers Union is meeting industry representatives tomorrow in the capital, Pretoria, over its wage demands that include a 9 percent increase in monthly pay, Deputy General Secretary Moleko Phakedi said by phone. Senwes, NWK , OWK , Suidwes, which are former agricultural cooperatives, are among those that may be affected.
“If we can’t find a settlement between now and Friday, we will have a strike,” Phakedi said.
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Workers are seeking above-inflation increases as South Africa, a net exporter of agricultural products, last year had the least rainfall since records started in 1904, damaging crops and herds and raising food prices. The farmers will need as much as R16.6 billion ($1.1 billion) in the year through March to subsidise feed purchases, provide grants and interest-rate subsidies to aid commercial growers in financial distress and help operators pay workers, a study by AGRI SA and others showed.
FAWU’s members are demanding an increase of at least R500 ($33) monthly and want the minimum wage to be R4 500. Other requests include an extra month of pay annually in the form of a 13th check, performance bonuses and an 850 rand housing allowance, Phakedi said. South Africa’s annual inflation rate was 6.2 percent in April.
“Negotiations have been long and difficult this year," industry representatives Riaan Gerritzen said by phone. “We are confident we will sort out the differences.”
About 27 percent of South Africa’s workforce is unemployed and the economy is expanding at the slowest rate since a recession in 2009.
BLOOMBERG