South Africa beer workers to strike?
By Noah Davis • Jan 6th, 2010 • Category: Beer News, featured
Probably not, actually.
SAB Miller, which is committing $200 million to its African operations in 2011, isn’t worried that a strike by workers in the soft drink union will affect its beer production. That’s probably because members of the beer division are paid just fine, thank you very much.
In fact, the soda workers only want their salaries to “catch up with those in the beer division,” Katishi Masemola, general secretary of the Food and Allied Workers Union, told Bloomberg News. In July, SAB increased the wages of workers in its beer division by 7.8 percent. Inflation in South Africa was almost six percent in November.
There is some fear that the soft drink union will encourage the beer workers to strike as well (roughly one-third of them are members of the Food and Allied Workers Union), but experts doubt this will occur. Well paid employees have little incentive to put their jobs at risk.
