Striking workers in South Africa’s sugar industry have said they are willing to return to the negotiating table if employers put forward an unconditional wage offer of at least seven per cent, according to a report. Workers downed tools nationwide on Monday, demanding a 13 per cent wage increase against the employers’ offer of 5.4 per cent, at a time when inflation stood at five per cent, Times Live reported.
The unions are also seeking a R1,000 transport allowance and a R1,500 housing allowance from employers, the report said.
The Food and Allied Workers Union (Fawu), the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, and Uasa had been negotiating with employers since February before the talks broke down about a month earlier. A commissioner from the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) subsequently attempted to mediate between the two sides.
Nkululeko Mthethwa, deputy president of Fawu, the largest of the three unions with about 2,800 members, said the unions had moved their position from 13 per cent to seven per cent before settling at six per cent. The employers, he said, moved from 5.4 per cent to six per cent but attached a condition seeking a review of sugar import tariffs. When the unions rejected the condition, arguing it fell under the ambit of the International Trade Administration Commission (Itac), the employers reverted to 5.4 per cent, prompting the unions to revert to their original 13 per cent demand.
“We are willing to go back to the negotiating table and settle at seven per cent,” Mthethwa said.
Mthethwa said about 70 per cent of the industry’s 5,000 workers were on strike across 12 milling companies in Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal, including Illovo Sugar SA, Tongaat Hulett, RCL Foods, UCL Company, Umfolozi Sugar Milling and Gledhow Sugar Company. He said Tongaat Hulett, the market leader, was currently under business rescue and could least afford the disruption.
Tongaat Hulett entered voluntary business rescue in October 2022 following heavy debt accumulation, severe liquidity shortages, and accounting scandals involving alleged fraud by past management. The company narrowly escaped liquidation in June after its business rescue practitioners, the Industrial Development Corporation and Vision Group, reached an agreement to keep it operating, a move that could safeguard more than 250,000 jobs across its operations and value chain, according to the report.
The sugar industry, which generates about R24 billion annually and contributes roughly one per cent to gross domestic product, has said it is under severe strain from cheap sugar imports from Brazil, Thailand and India. According to SA Canegrowers, 94,984 tonnes of sugar were imported into South Africa between January and May, compared with 55,213 tonnes in the same period of 2025 and just 1,491 tonnes in the same period of 2022.
The sector, which supports about a million livelihoods in the sugar-producing provinces of KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga, has blamed the 2018 introduction of the health promotion levy, commonly known as the sugar tax, for worsening financial losses and job cuts in rural farming communities. It has also called for higher import tariffs to protect local cane growers, saying they lose more than R7,500 per tonne of cheap imports.
Itac, which operates under the oversight of the department of trade, industry and competition, launched a formal review in January to assess appropriate tariff protections after receiving two competing applications concerning the dollar-based reference price (DBRP) that governs the country’s variable sugar import tariff. Itac said the South African Sugar Association (Sasa) had applied for the DBRP to be raised to $905 (R14,674) per tonne from $680 (R11,024), citing the need to protect the local industry, while the Beverage Association of South Africa had sought a reduction to between $552 (R8,946) and $650 (R10,534), citing the impact of the duty on producers, bottlers and consumers.
Sasa referred queries on the dispute to the South African Sugar Millers’ Association (Sasma), a non-profit trade body representing milling and refining companies on industry policy, sector guidelines, market strategy and collective bargaining, with comment from the organisation awaited at the time of the report.
