NZ Consumers “Choking” on Nestlé’s Maggi Noodles?

For more than half a year, management at Nestlé Fiji have been stone-walling negotiations with the IUF-affiliated Fiji Sugar and General Workers’ Union (FSGWU), which represents Nestlé workers and who make Maggi Noodles for the New Zealand market.

For more than half a year, management at Nestlé Fiji have been stone-walling negotiations with the IUF-affiliated Fiji Sugar and General Workers' Union (FSGWU), which represents Nestlé workers and who make Maggi Noodles for the New Zealand market.

In 2006 Nestlé has reported record net profits of US$7.6 billion (an increase of almost 14% from 2005) and sales of almost US$80 billion (up 8.1% on 2005).
This means that Nestlé's profits alone are more than three times the Gross National Income (GNI) of Fiji and its sales are about the same as New Zealand's GNI.
Given these record profits it is nothing short of a scandal that the company continues to insist that workers in Fiji remain on below poverty line wages.
Fiji's poverty line was defined as F$3.50 (US$2.10) an hour several years ago, a figure which does not take into account the cost of housing, while Nestlé management have simply refused to increase wages beyond F$2.70 an hour.

During 2006 management intransigence led workers at the Nestlé factory to vote overwhelmingly to take industrial action in September 2006.
In October 2006, IUF-affiliated unions representing Nestlé workers in the region wrote to Nestlé headquarters in Switzerland voicing their dissatisfaction with sub-poverty line wage rates, protesting at the failure of management to bargain in good faith and stating their solidarity with
workers in Fiji.
Whether Nestlé's actions could have ramifications for the popularity of its products is very hard to tell, but, in general, consumers, 22% of whom in New Zeland also happen
to be union members, are often very wary of buying products tainted with injustice.