No gold at end of the rainbow for SA's beleaguered chicken industry
There are fears there could be even more job losses in the local industry, which has struggled in the face of increasing imports in the past three to five years
Amid layoffs and closures, and a call for a total ban on imports, a task team is trying to save South Africa's chicken industry. Last Sunday, Christopher Majola cut a lonely figure, sitting on a manhole pondering his bleak future after losing his job of 34 years at Rainbow Chicken in Hammarsdale, KwaZulu-Natal. As scores of his frustrated fellow retrenched workers filed past him for a meeting at the Mpumalanga township's main hall, Majola spent his time fiddling with his cellphone. Two days earlier, the 59-year-old father of six from Cato Ridge, halfway between Durban and Pietermaritzburg, had knocked off for the last time after receiving the devastating news that he had been retrenched. Majola was one of 1,200 workers laid off by Rainbow Chicken, which is owned by RCL Foods, in a bid to stay afloat after years of fighting cheap chicken imports from the EU, Brazil and the US. On Tuesday, more workers also clocked out for the last time at Rainbow - bringing the number of retrenched w...
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