By Wezi Tjaronda WINDHOEK The strike by the close to 200 employees of Meatco has further worsened the crisis of slaughtering of especially small stock, the Namibia Agricultural Union (NAU) has said. The shortage of grazing in most parts of the country has forced small stock farmers to sell off their sheep before they lose more weight, causing long waiting lists at the abattoirs. And the agricultural unions have asked for an increase in the number of on-the-hoof exports to reduce pressure on local abattoirs. NAU said in its newsletter on Friday the strike caused further accumulation of animals, which were scheduled for slaughter on Friday and Saturday. The workers downed their tools on Thursday morning in protest against the suspension of the Namibia Wholesale and Retail Workers Union’s shop steward, Ebenhardt Kanguru, who allegedly assaulted his Namibia Food and Allied Workers Union (Nafawu) counterpart Gideon Swartbooi. The two were in conflict over which was the right union to negotiate for a wage increase for the workers on the second day of negotiations for the increase. Due to this action, Meatco failed to slaughter 429 cattle and 1 426 sheep on Thursday, as well as animals scheduled for Friday. Meatco had to inform its producers who were due to bring their cattle in for slaughtering on Thursday not to do so because of the prevailing situation. Meatco on Friday served the workers with a court interdict after the group refused to return to work. The 119 workers have since been suspended pending a disciplinary hearing that starts on Wednesday and which is scheduled to last for five to seven working days. The company’s Manager: Corporate Communications, Uschi Ramakhutla, said yesterday all the operations at the Windhoek plant continued on Thursday and Friday except that no slaughtering was done on both days due to the strike. In the process, Meatco incurred losses of over N$480 000 per day in direct costs for Thursday, Friday and today. In addition, the company had to bear the cost of transporting the cattle and sheep back to the farms and returning them to Meatco again, and also the costs of getting skilled people in to slaughter while the 119 employees are on suspension pending their disciplinary hearing. Ramakhutla said Meatco has also taken the responsibility to slaughter all the animals that had to be cancelled in the coming weeks despite the limited availability of slaughtering capacity during the next few months.