Cape Town - The Covid-19 pandemic has had a financially devastating effect on at least one abalone farm and has led to a labour dispute and the dismissal of more than 60 workers in Hermanus.
Staff downed tools at HIK Abalone Farm after their working hours were cut.
Zuzeka Dibera, 25, from Hermanus, said the staff had walked off the job because they believed management was lying to them.
She said: “They (HIK management) were complaining of the coronavirus, then they said that thing is affecting the whole company.... Then we find out that it’s only affecting the union members. What we saw is that the management is working full-time although they said it’s affecting the whole farm... they said the management is not getting paid, only volunteering and when we asked for proof they said we’re not getting that.”
Louis Hauptfleisch, financial manager at HIK Abalone Farm, said: “Staff make up about 30% of our cost structure. We asked the wage workers to work short-time so they have been working 50% short-time and salary staff have been working 75%.”
Hauptfleisch said the impact of the virus had been devastating to the company’s bottom line.
“Our biggest market is Hong Kong, where we sell 90% of our abalone.
They get, annually, about 65 million Chinese tourists and they eat our abalone. The biggest impact happened after Chinese New Year, the 25th of January 2020, and we saw a dramatic decrease in sales up until that point our sales were normal.”
Farmed abalone is piling up and it’s not profitable to flood the local market.
“People get abalone locally and that’s the problem - they not going to pay the R200 a can which we can get in the export market,” added Hauptfleisch.
At the beginning of the month, the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries tried to assist fisherman hard-hit by the drop in exports - particularly rock lobster.
Minister of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries Barbara Creecy said: “The department is concerned about fishers and communities who have been adversely affected by this unexpected international event... we have decided to extend the near-shore fishery in the Western Cape until June and the offshore and Northern Cape fisheries until September.”