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SACP stands in solidarity with Festive Chicken Workers fighting for a living wage, condemns reported police violence against the striking workers
The South African Communist Party (SACP) expresses full solidarity with thousands of workers at Festive Chicken who have launched an indefinite protected strike in Gauteng and Mpumalanga to secure a living wage and better working conditions.
The workers are demanding a mere R13,500 per month. According to the Casual Workers Advice Office, some Festive Chicken workers currently earn as little as R5,600 per month for a 45-hour workweek, while workers on some poultry farms reportedly earn about R7,300 per month for a 48-hour workweek.
The strike includes workers at the major Festive Chicken processing operation in Olifantsfontein in Gauteng, as well as chicken catchers and workers involved in live-bird handling. These wages must be measured against the real conditions facing working-class households. Workers do not live on abstract percentages.
They must pay for food, transport, electricity, rent and housing, school costs, healthcare and other necessities. A wage that cannot support a worker and their family with dignity is not a decent wage just because it meets a statutory minimum.
A living wage is affordable: Astral cannot plead poverty Festive Chicken is part of Astral Foods, one of South Africa’s major integrated poultry enterprises. Astral’s own financial results make the contrast between corporate prosperity and workers’ wages impossible to ignore. For the six months ended 31 March 2026, Astral reported revenue of approximately R11.9 billion, profit before interest and tax of over R1.2 billion, profit for the period of approximately R895.5 million, and a cash balance of more than R1.15 billion.
The company also declared an interim dividend of 1,160 cents per share.
For the previous full financial year, Astral reported revenue of R22.6 billion, operating profit of approximately R1.25 billion and profit for the year of R876 million. These figures demonstrate that this is not fundamentally a struggle against an enterprise without resources. It is a struggle over how the wealth created through workers’ labour is distributed.
The Casual Workers Advice Office, citing Astral’s 2025 Annual Report, has further highlighted that CEO Gary Arnold received total remuneration of approximately R27.9 million for that financial year. Astral’s audited results separately record total remuneration for its executive directors of approximately R78.18 million for the year ended September 2025.
The SACP therefore calls on Astral Foods and Festive Chicken to engage the workers seriously and in good faith and to meet the legitimate demand for a living wage. A highly profitable company cannot celebrate strong earnings, cash generation and shareholder returns while workers producing that wealth struggle to afford the necessities of life. Workers are being crushed by the cost-of-living crisis The Festive Chicken workers’ struggle takes place amid a severe cost-of-living crisis. In October alone, the regulated petrol price increased by approximately R3.12 per litre for 93-octane petrol and R3.33 per litre for 95-octane petrol, while diesel increased by between roughly R2.84 and R3.24 per litre.
By 21 October, 95-octane petrol was around R30.25 per litre inland. Every such increase hits working-class family budgets. It raises the direct cost of taxis and other transport and contributes to higher costs throughout food production and distribution and other essential goods and services.
The government’s temporary fuel-levy relief announced in the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement, R1.50 per litre on petrol and R3 per litre on diesel from 4 November to 1 December, followed by smaller reductions until early January, provides some immediate relief, but it is temporary and inadequate to the structural scale of the costof-living crisis affecting workers. South Africa needs a much deeper solution, including production income distribution justice and an economic policy that protects working-class households from repeatedly absorbing the external shocks while executive pay is sky-high. Austerity compounds the pressure on workers The struggle for improvements for workers at Festive Chicken also cannot be separated from the broader macro-economic environment.
The SACP has already rejected the austerity path and its continuation through the 2026 Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement. The current fiscal framework restrains expenditure growth while unemployment, poverty and inequality remain at crisis levels. This approach constrains public investment, employment creation, social protection and the capacity of the state and municipalities to meet working-class needs. When public services are weakened, transport becomes unaffordable, administered prices rise and social provision fails to keep pace with need.
The costs do not disappear. They are pushed back into households. Therefore, the struggle for a living wage is inseparable from the struggle against austerity and the broader struggle for macro-economic policy change. Reported police attack on protected strikers requires immediate investigation The SACP is deeply alarmed by reports received today that police used rubber bullets against workers participating in the Festive Chicken strike, resulting in injuries to striking workers and organisers, with some requiring hospital treatment.
These reports require immediate explanation and investigation. Workers participating peacefully in a protected strike are exercising a constitutionally protected, hard-won labour right. The police have no mandate to become an instrument for breaking lawful industrial action or intimidating workers on behalf of an employer. The SACP therefore calls for: 1. an immediate cessation of repression and any unjustified use of force against the striking workers; 2. urgent medical assistance and support for all those injured; 3. a transparent investigation into the circumstances in which police force was used; 4. accountability for any unlawful or disproportionate conduct; 5. protection of the workers’ lawful right to strike, assemble and organise; and 6. urgent engagement by the employer aimed at resolving the wage dispute rather than escalating confrontation.
The Party also notes CWAO's allegation that workers were threatened with dismissal and pressured to sign documents relating to participation in the strike. CWAO says Lawyers for Human Rights wrote to Festive demanding an end to alleged intimidation. These allegations should be answered directly by the company. An injury to one is an injury to all The SACP calls upon the trade-union movement, workers in other workplaces, progressive civil-society organisations, community organisations and working-class communities to express practical solidarity with the Festive Chicken workers.
This dispute raises a question extending far beyond one workplace: Who benefits from the wealth workers create? South Africa cannot build an inclusive economy while companies generate hundreds of millions of rand in profits and substantial shareholder value-capture while the workers at the heart of production remain trapped in poverty wages. Astral Foods and Festive Chicken must return to meaningful negotiations, stop any intimidation of workers, recognise the legitimacy of workers’ rights for decent livelihoods and pay a living wage. The working class must not be forced to choose between going hungry and surrendering its right to organise.
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