Firm sheds over 1 000 jobs
Chicken war blamed after retrenchment
ANEW business model at RCL Foods’ Rainbow Chicken plant in Hammarsdale will come into effect today.
The new model at the KwaZulu-Natal facility will reduce the two-shift system to a single one, resulting in the loss of 1 350 workers out of a staff complement of about 2 700.
More than 200 workers have been placed at RCL Foods’ other operations in the province.
RCL Foods, the country’s second-largest chicken producer, is one of the companies which say they are feeling the brunt of the dumping of foreign chicken in the local market.
Most of the retrenched workers were laid off on Friday and some were to knock off for the last time yesterday afternoon.
The poultry industry says the dumping of cheap EU, US and Brazilian products is putting at risk an industry with 110 000 direct and indirect workers and a further 20 000 jobs in the related grains industry.
In a move aimed at easing the hardship of the retrenched workers, RCL Foods, government officials and trade union federation Cosatu and its affiliate Food and Allied Workers Union (Fawu) met the workers in nearby Mpumalanga on Sunday to give them ideas on how they can make ends meet.
RCL Foods committed itself to helping its former workers by paying for their reskilling courses.
Busisiwe Zungu, who had worked at RCL for 27 years, said many of the workers did not hold out much hope. The single mother of five was the only breadwinner before she was axed on Friday.
“They said they will form teams that will ensure there is no dumping of cheap products so that lost jobs would be retained. But there is very little hope that they can achieve this.
“I have two children who have passed matric but cannot study further because I couldn’t afford it. At least they could have pledged to help us educate these children in the hope they [the children] would be able to ease our plight when they are qualified,” she said.
Loraine Ngubane, another retrenched worker from Mpumalanga, echoed Zungu’s sentiments. She said even if the workers were reskilled, there was no guarantee they would secure employment elsewhere.
Meanwhile, thousands of workers and their poultry industry bosses are set to march in Pretoria today to protest against what they say is dumping of cheap chicken products in the local market.
The march will be led by Fawu general secretary Katishi Masemola, South African Poultry Association chief executive Kevin Lovell, Astral chief executive Chris Schutte, RCL Foods consumer division managing director Scott Pitman and Country Bird chief executive Marthinus Stander.
KwaZulu-Natal Fawu spokesman August Mbhele said the march would be part of rolling mass action to save jobs in the poultry industry. — TMG