The Fiji Trades Union Congress has publicly challenged last week’s fuel price increase, saying the Fijian Competition and Consumer Commission’s decision does not reflect the realities facing workers and risks handing windfall gains to fuel companies. In a statement on Thursday, FTUC National Secretary Felix Anthony said the union understood global market pressures but questioned how a rise in retail prices could be justified when existing fuel stocks were allegedly purchased at lower rates.
“We fail to understand how the crisis impacts the current fuel stocks that were bought at the old prices,” Mr Anthony said, arguing that the timing of the retail increase would effectively allow suppliers to lift pump prices while selling recent inventory bought before the global uptick. He urged the FCCC to be transparent in its decision-making and to rescind its approval of the increase “until suppliers begin paying higher costs for imported fuel.”
The union warned the jump in fuel costs will have immediate knock-on effects across the economy, pushing up transport and freight charges and, in turn, the price of essential goods. FTUC flagged that those impacts will fall most heavily on low-income households and workers earning the national minimum wage — which Mr Anthony noted remains at $5 and is below the country’s poverty line. The congress said the combination of higher fuel and living costs makes an urgent case for wage relief.
As part of its response, FTUC called for a broader review of wage policy under the Wages Council Orders and urged government to increase the minimum wage to a living-wage level above the poverty line. “If this logic of anticipating higher costs is applied to fuel pricing, it must equally apply to workers,” Mr Anthony said, pressing that wage adjustments be made to protect purchasing power for Fiji’s lowest-paid workers.
The union’s intervention comes after the FCCC has recently been at the centre of debates about utility pricing. The commission defended an electricity tariff adjustment earlier this year amid business and public concern, and its decisions have prompted calls for greater public consultation. FTUC’s latest demand for transparency and an immediate rescission of the fuel increase escalates pressure on the regulator to explain the calculations and timing behind its approval.
With the cost-of-living squeeze intensifying, the dispute highlights competing priorities: the regulator’s mandate to reflect market realities and ensure supply, and unions’ push to shield vulnerable households from price shocks. FTUC has now set the clock running for a regulatory response and further political debate on wages and consumer protections; the commission and government have so far not publicly replied to the union’s call for reversal and transparency.
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