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Press updates:
Minister gets tough on the clothing sector
Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies on Saturday said government’s new policies will make it more difficult for businesses in the clothing sector to cook the books. For more click on the link.
http://www.eyewitnessnews.co.za/articleprog.aspx?id=49341
26 September 2010
IEC throws local clothing sector a bone
September 27, 2010
By Florence de Vries
In a bid to revive the ailing local clothing and textile industry, the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union (Sactwu) has persuaded the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) to insist on locally manufactured T-shirts for next year's local government elections.
Industry insiders say the IEC's agreement with Sactwu is an important step towards paving the way to state procurement in the local clothing and textile industry. For more click on the link.
http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=561&fArticleId=5662737
New wage structure for rag trade tabled
Council considers chamber's proposal is worth discussing
September 27, 2010
By SLINDILE KHANYILE
THE National bargaining council for the clothing manufacturing industry would consider a new wage structure for the sector that has been proposed by the Newcastle Chinese Chamber of Commerce, Free State Clothing Manufacturers and the KwaZulu-Natal Cut, Make and Trim Forum. For more click on the link.
http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=561&fArticleId=5662736
DA MPs visit textile factories
Democratic Alliance
27 September 2010
Inspired by Helen Suzman's greatest life lesson: "go and see for yourself"
For more than 10 years, ANC administrations have announced plan after plan to stem the loss of jobs in the clothing and textile sector. Most of these have amounted to nothing, even as job losses continue to mount. Over the past decade and a half, as many as 100,000 jobs have been lost in the sector. A recent flurry of announcements from government ministers have once again raised the hopes that textile workers that they will not lose their jobs, and that unemployed job seekers may find work in the sector. The Clothing and Textiles Competitiveness Programme, a Production Incentive, the Training Layoff Scheme, a Local Content Quota and several others have recently been floated as new interventions to assist the sector. But based on the limited success of previous government programmes many analysts are questioning this administration's capacity to implement these programmes.
Therefore, over the coming weeks, and inspired by Helen Suzman's greatest life lesson: "go and see for yourself", a team of DA public representatives are touring textile factories to assess the status of South Africa's clothing and textile sector. They will evaluate the potential for simple policy reforms to provide better assistance to the sector than the ongoing raft of interventions flowing from the Department of Trade and Industry.
The tour begins today. This afternoon, a group of DA public representatives and members, including Tim Harris MP, DA Shadow Minister of Trade and Industry; Sizwe Mchunu MPL, deputy DA leader in KwaZulu-Natal and Alf Lees MP, constituency MP for Newcastle, and former DA MP Sherry Chen are touring textile factories in Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal, following the stand-off between factory owners and the national bargaining council. Our delegation will meet with workers, factory owners and other role-players in an effort to better understand those forces threatening to undermine the sector, and begin to formulate a plan to finally improve competitiveness, increase investment and create jobs.
As part of our tour, we will also visit plants in the Eastern Cape and Western Cape during October. Details of further visits will be announced ahead of time.
Poor women workers battered by South Africa wage law
Sep 27, 2010 02:39 PM
A national drive to close down clothes factories who flout the minimum wage laws is crushing women working on the factory floor – the very people it is supposed to help.
A national drive to close down clothes factories who flout the minimum wage laws is crushing women working on the factory floor – the very people it is supposed to help.
Some working in the nation’s Chinese and Taiwanese-owned factories make as little as about £23 a week, £13 less than the minimum wage. But many still need the scant wage to support children or large extended families, most of whom are jobless.
More than a third of South Africans are jobless. With its own industry in freefall because of low-wage competition from China and too few unskilled job openings, many women are more scared of being out of work more than getting stuck in badly paid jobs.
For longer than 10 years, South Africa’s jobless figure has been among the highest in the world, fuelling crime, inequality and social instability in Africa’s richest nation. And the global recession has made things much worse, wiping out more than a million jobs. “The numbers are mind-boggling,” Yale University economist James Levinsohn, told The New York Times.
The average worker in South Africa makes about four times what city workers make in China and are much higher than their counterparts in other developing countries, which has made people reluctant to invest in it. A recent wave of strikes hasn’t improved the situation.
As Chinese-made clothing has flooded the market, the number of clothes factory workers employed in South Africa has plummeted to 60,000 from 150,000 in 1996. And if the 300 plus factories breaking the minimum wage law get closed down, 20,000 more jobs could go.
The women who work for them, also striving for their families, have seen their industry crumble. In Newcastle, in the country's north-west, 7,000 people have lost their jobs in recent years as three large factories went out of business.
Emily Mbongwa, 52, was one. She lost her job in 2004. She never found another one.
“The factory passed away,” she explained sadly, as if describing a death in the family.
Now, she is looking after other women’s children. She watches five children from 6 am to 6 pm, five days a week.
Dubbed Africa's superpower, South Africa went into recession in May 2009 after a sharp slowdown in mining and manufacturing. The construction industry, on the other hand, benefited from a huge programme of government investment ahead of the 2010 World Cup.
Reference:
“SOS Children” refers to SOS Children’s Villages worldwide. SOS Children is also a working name for SOS Children’s Villages UK.
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