Clothing workers struggling to survive

The cost of being a clothing worker in Newcastle is high. It costs between R50 and R100 a week for a worker to travel to and from work. This is if one takes a bus or taxi and lives in Madadeni or Osizweni. Household electricity is R70 a week and rent on average about R40 a week.

The food and grocery expenses of low-wage workers are limited to basic goods.

Expenses are often greater than the legal minimum wage in Newcastle for a starting machinist, R416.50 a week, or even that of a qualified machinist, R489 a week. Despite this, commentators often refer to Newcastle when arguing for greater labour and wage flexibility with some Newcastle employers proposing a reduced minimum wage of R280 a week.

Would you be prepared to work 40 to 45 hours a week for R280? Would you be able to live off R416.50 a week?

That R416.50 a week is considered “too high” is indicative of the skewed values of our society. While clothing workers are often lambasted for wanting higher wages, few people complain about the income of executives, including at the clothing retailers where many of the garments made in Newcastle end up. For example, one clothing retailer chief executive earned R8.55 million in the past year. It is the equivalent of R164 000 a week – about 400 times more than a clothing worker.

The fact is that poverty wage workers may have a job, but their quality of life is little better than the unemployed. Even the demands of a very basic standard of living outstrip their means. In order to cope, workers employ a range of survival strategies including not eating for a few days during the week, relying on the support of their extended families and borrowing money from microlenders at great cost.

We often hear that “half a loaf is better than none”, it is an opinion heavy with the hypocrisy of classism, articulated by the comfortable who are divorced from the realities of life for poor people. Admittedly, sometimes workers also say “something is better than nothing”. When this is heard by ears deaf to the complexities of class, the sentiment is believed at face value.

Workers’ desperation is then paraded as validation for subjecting them to poverty wages, but this is not the full story. Time and again during meetings I held with Newcastle workers, they unambiguously said: “We are scared of losing our jobs. But we are not happy with our wages. We cannot live off them. We want more money.”

Can clothing workers receive better wages and keep their jobs? Employers and commentators will have us believe jobs can only be kept if wages are dropped. The SA Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union (Sactwu) believes they are wrong.

Our industry needs a sustainable solution. This exists in the form of the customised sector programme, designed and agreed by Sactwu, business and government. This strategy aims to move the industry away from competitiveness based only on price and towards improved productivity, work organisation, skill levels, machinery, quality and delivery times.

This will add value to goods and give manufacturers an opportunity to get products into local retailers while at the same time securing a higher wage for workers.

What some employers propose is impractical. We cannot compete in the race to the bottom. After all, the weekly wage of a clothing worker in Bangladesh is about R65. But we can win if we focus on industry development in the manner identified in the sector development strategy and by implementing this strategy’s programmes.

Chris Gina is Sactwu’s national organising secretary.

Reference: Business Report, 30 August 2011