Cosatu condemns bread price rise 15-01-08

 

COSATU condemns bread price rise

The Congress of South African Trade Unions strongly condemns the 40c a loaf increase in the price of bread, announced today by Tiger Brands, the maker of Albany bread. This will add to the already intolerable hardship for millions of poor families who are struggling to contend with rocketing prices for food, fuel, school uniforms and other essential items.

Food price increases are the biggest single driver of inflation, yet the Reserve Bank, which claims its mandate is to target inflation, says nothing to condemn these increases.

Tiger claims that this decision was made independently of other bread producers and had nothing to do with the R99 million fine imposed on them last year for price-fixing. Yet the other two big companies, Pioneer, which produces Sasko, and Premier, which makes Blue Ribbon, are expected to announce similar increases almost immediately.

The strong suspicion therefore remains that these three companies are acting in collusion to make bigger profits at the expense of poor consumers, and that Tiger Brands is passing the cost of the R99 million fine to its customers.

COSATU renews its call for a much broader investigation into the food price chain, to find out the truth behind allegations of price-fixing in the production and distribution of all food products, and to find out the real reasons for the increases. We are asking our research arm, NALEDI to conduct its own research into this.

One thing we know for certain is that the workers who produce the bread, on the farms and in the bakeries, are not getting any of the extra money being paid by consumers, and are themselves victims of the rising prices.

The COSATU Central Executive Committee in February will discuss how best we can take forward a focussed campaign to organise resistance to these assaults on the living standards of the poor, and will work with our allies in the Jobs and Poverty Campaign to mobilise civil society on the issue.

The ANC NEC declared 2008 to be the year of mass mobilisation. There could no better issue on which to mobilise the people that these intolerable increases in the prices of necessities.

COSATU unions will also be seeking wage increases in this year’s bargaining round to compensate for the erosion of their members’ real standard of living that all this inflation is causing.