Unions concerned at proposed bread price hike
Consumers are expected to fork out more for another basic necessity.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has come out and condemned the announced bread price increase by 10%.
The possible increase in the price of bread comes after Treasury announced a 34% increase in import duties on wheat.
The increase in import duties may be due to droughts currently experienced by the country.
Cosatu has urged government and Treasury to revisit this decision in a bid to protect the poor who might be hit hard by increased prices of bread.
“The federation is worried because bread is a stable food of most poor households, who are already taking a serious strain from the escalating food prices.
It is unacceptable that workers who work in bakeries and on the farms will find themselves struggling to afford the same bread that they spend their days toiling to produce,” said Cosatu’s Sizwe Pamla.
The proposed bread price increase comes days after the country experienced yet another petrol price hike.
Last week a litre of petrol increased by 88 cents per litre.
Cosatu warns that these factors may force unions to demand higher wages in this year’s bargaining round.
Pamla said, “Workers have been getting inflation related salary adjustments, but they have been repealed by the exorbitant increases, we have seen in bread, water, electricity, fuel and municipal tariffs.
“It is laughable to hear government and the private sector complaining that the public service wage bill is too high, yet at the same time they are colluding and robbing workers blind and squeezing their poverty wages.”
