South Africa
Breaking News by The ReDress Consultancy
NON-COMPLIANT CLOTHING COMPANIES GET FURTHER RELIEF
Non-compliant clothing manufacturing companies have been granted a further 16 month extension to resolve their non-compliant status, with effect from 1 January 2011. This was agreed between the Southern African Clothing & Textile Workers' Union (SACTWU), the Apparel Manufacturers' Association of South Africa (AMSA) and other clothing employer associations, on Friday last week and fine-tuned on Monday and Tuesday this week.
This agreement was reached as part of the Clothing & Textile Accord process, facilitated under the auspices of Minister Ebrahim Patel's Economic Development Department.
In terms of the agreement, non-compliant companies will be allowed to phase-in to wage compliant status over a 16 month period. In terms of the envisaged phase-in program, they will be required to be at least 70% wage compliant by the end of March next year, with further phase-ins over the subsequent 13 months, culminating in full compliance by the end of April 2012.
This agreement is to be ratified in a formal special meeting of the Clothing Manufacturing Industry Bargaining Council, scheduled to take place on Wednesday 22 December 2010. Non-compliant companies will be briefed there-after, on the details and the required steps for them to take advantage of this relief offer.
This decision constitutes a significant and extremely generous concession to non-compliant companies in the industry. It will have the effect of saving 15 000 clothing industry jobs immediately. These jobs would have been lost in January next year, had the parties opted to execute legitimately obtained writs of execution. On Monday (yesterday), at a meeting held in Durban, 103 non-compliant clothing companies signed a Memorandum of Understanding with SACTWU, committing to this new compliance phase-in program.
No further details will be released, until after Wednesday's Special Bargaining Council meeting.
1 comments:
Sanity has prevailed, saving 15000 jobs is huge!! 103 companies involved, what about the other 297 companies who have writs issued against them? Is bc going ahead with actions?
B council- the nobler the language, the more nefarious the purpose of the legal instrument!
Wishing you a happy n peaceful festive season.
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