INDUSTRY HIT BY IMPORTS
Bleak future for 1,350 axed Rainbow workers
Devastated workers at Rainbow Chicken’s Hammarsdale factory face jobless future
At 3pm on Friday, Loraine Ngubane, 42, will knock off work for the last time at Rainbow Chicken (RCL) Foods’ plant in Hammarsdale, about 50km west of Durban. Ngubane is among 1,350 workers in the company who will be laid off this week as the sector reels from what it says is an influx of chicken imports. SA imported an average of 27,500 tonnes of poultry a month from the US, Brazil and the EU for the 12 months to June 2016, representing a 43% hike. But many analysts say other factors are to blame. Ngubane, a resident of Mpumalanga township near Hammarsdale, has worked at RCL Foods for 10 years but her future, and that of her family, looks bleak. "I don’t know what I will do now. I don’t know how I will take care of my family as my whole life was dependent on this job," she said.
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