Foreign textile workers arrested in Newcastle factory raids
At least 46 foreign workers without legal work permits were arrested in a surprise swoop by the Department of Labour at what it called “12 of the worst clothing factories” in Newcastle, officials said yesterday.
The raid is one of the initiatives the department has encouraged provinces to undertake in a bid to stamp out non-compliance in the textile industry. This is in addition to the nationwide blitz campaign that focuses on high-risk and problematic sectors.
The inspection, to ensure compliance with labour laws, was conducted in collaboration with the Department of Home Affairs, the SAPS and the bargaining council for the clothing and textile sector.
“This is a way in which a holistic and consolidated approach is used to root out employers who flout the law. Follow-up inspections will be conducted and if it is found that the employers concerned are still disregarding the law, then inspectors will not hesitate to recommend prosecution in such instances,” said Abey Rasepae, the provincial control inspector of the Department of Labour in KwaZulu-Natal.
Although the nationalities of those arrested could not be confirmed yesterday, Rasepae said there was concern over textile companies hiring foreign labourers who did not have the correct documentation and permits. Nine workers were arrested two weeks ago in a similar operation.
The antagonism between government agencies and textile factory owners has been exacerbated by the latter’s reluctance to pay agreed minimum wages, despite a process through which government has tried to enforce compliance.
Rasepae said yesterday’s raid had uncovered various anomalies. Production at one factory was ordered to stop as the sewing machines had no safety guards and this posed a danger to workers.
“Some of the contraventions included emergency exits not being demarcated, no electrical certificates available for electrical installations and no soap or toilet paper being placed in toilets.
“In one instance, it was found that only one toilet was shared by almost 60 male and female employees,” he said.
He said some factories had no fire-fighting equipment or qualified first aid personnel, and some first aid boxes were not adequately supplied
“Employers were also found to be on the wrong side of the law when it came to making declarations and paying contributions to the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF). The lack of registering with the Compensation Fund was also prevalent,” Rasepae said.
The Southern African Clothing & Textile Workers Union (Sactwu) had laid complaints against the employers, accusing them of exploiting workers and not providing decent working conditions.
Rasepae said such initiatives would be continued to ensure that the enforcement of labour laws gained momentum at all levels, particularly where there was gross violation.
Inspectors have issued contravention notices giving employers 60 days to comply.
Reference: Ayanda Mdluli, Business Report, 30 September 2011
13 comments:
the factories that have not registered for UIF should be sanctioned, aside from bargaining council restrictive compliance, UIF & workman's comp is not burdensome & a simple matter to deal with.
The union naturally will pounce on this infringement as flagrant disregard of the labour laws of the Republic and unfortunately they would not be wrong. It does however show how skewed there approach is with companies.
smacks of vested interests in bargaining council affairs - a 2 pronged attack using three arms - Union, Labour dept & bargaining council.
the use of illegal staff also needs to be addressed. The factory owners themselves are or once were foreign staff here on work permits - they know the rules, they clearly are playing a dangerous game.
What is glaringly obvious is that the associations that these factories purport to belong to make no or seem to make no attempt to get their members on the "right side" of the labour law - bargaining council issues aside.
Now the union, labour dept & the employer associations in Newcastle & elsewhere need to pull finger & address these serious issues which they have turned a blind eye to, they are becoming their own worst enemies & support will wane extremely quickly as more of these transgressions come to light.
I am surprised none of the factory association heads in Newcastle have made any comment. A very sad state indeed
Hmmmm - condition in Newcastle not very nice. But is this the only place in whole of SA in clothing industry that is violating rules? Also why have workers put up with this conditions for so long. They have a voice, the have union why in all thew talks with union and newcastle in all the past months these conditions never spoken about. union and bargin council have conducted raids before ....have they told these factories to get things in order?
Not very nice but not only place am sure there are worst factories in cape town and elsewhere.
CT#2
To Anonymous #1, I agree with you, UIF and Compensation Funds are non-negotiable. The fact is that the factory had instructed their labour consultant to apply for it because it's a new entity, they were waiting for the Registration number so the payments can be made.
Illegal foreign workers is another concern, it highlights the skills shortage and aged experienced workers in our country. On the other hand, these factories remain in Newcastle instead of relocating to Lesotho or Swaziland and employing none South African.
We admit that there are many things need to be improved, but not all factories are members of the chamber, we try to rectify this through an independent Disciplinary Committee.
If a QA is determined to fail an order, any faults can be found from the garments.
Alex
Alex, the situation is quite dire. You are quite correct these are targeted attacks on Newcastle of that their can be no doubt, however i disagree with the laying of blame at the labour consultant, the factory is responsible to ensure the consultant does their job & gets the relevant UIF reg. number, it does not take months to obtain a number, far too much is said about foreign nationals without permits, this needs to be addressed too, it seems that you are doing some good work representing the members of your association - why are you not bringing your members in line sooner.Why wait for a crisis before crying foul.
Intimidation is unacceptable I agree wholeheartedly - and yes it smacks of single minded targeting of a particular area & also borders on sensitive racial profiling too.
Which I am sure can be made merry in the press if the need arises.
You need to bring your members in line, what about the other associations in your area what are they doing what role do you play as it seems there is only your voice & your association, in previous articles / blogs there seems to be a 2nd grouping / association in Newcastle are you working independently from each other as that would be a a certain recipe for disaster - two divided groups vying for control & losing everything in the end.
The work you seem to be doing - as far as the legal action is concerned et al is commendable and needs more support.
Alex you have allot of work to do getting the Chinese image cleaned up. Stop talking and start acting before it's too late for Newcastle & the industry as a whole
The Newcastle Chinese Chamber has set up a meeting on Sunday to discuss these issues.
Perhaps you overlooked an important factor - Language Barrier. None of these Chinese factory owners were born in South Africa nor do they read and speak fluent English. You can imagine if you operate a business in China and try to get everything in order by yourself - from Local Municipality, SARS, DoH, DoL, Fire Brigade, SAPS, Banks and etc. 2 of our members were robbed on the road after withdrawing wages the bank in last month, one factory owner were arm robbed by real police from JHB at night in his factory.
There are two associations in Newcastle as you mentioned, thanks to SACTWU's tactic. That's why I mentioned not all factories are members to the chamber. Our chamber can only discipline and advise our members; unfortunately there are some factories thought they were under certain gentlemen agreement and protection from the trade union, when they get caught of wrongdoing, SACTWU always demands the Newcastle Chinese Chamber to come forwards and accept the memorandum and blames.
Newcastle factories cannot fight this struggle alone, our arguments are valid and concern the whole clothing industry. Yet we have received very little supports from other areas. And it could even get worse after the raids.
Alex
Alex - do not blame the language - surely you as their representative have set up designated translators to assist these factories. How did they register their businesses in the first place, open bank accounts , write cheques, pay wages , get drivers licenses , go shopping , etc..
How do they communicate with their customers if language is an issue - do you / your association assist them daily dealing with their customers who speak English or the customers representatives who visit these factories. How do the customers deal with the language barrier.
I find your language excuse laughable as this situation has been going on for quite some time, if media reports are anything to go by.
Being robbed by unscrupulous police or any other official in uniform happens to all citizens of this country - it must be condemned in the strongest terms.
The community that you claim to represent needs to become more active and not isolate themselves - making themselves more of a target.
You have a long way to go if your community does not clean up it's seriously tarnished image.
Gentleman's agreement or not how can there be a divide and rule tactic which is plain to see - you should be doing more to bring this other association into some alignment so that a concentrated single minded approach can be achieved & success has more chance of being a reality.
I agree with you 100% that you need more support, yet if your community's image does not improve & drastically it can & will get worse.
I wasn't trying to find excuses but simply stating the daily challenges and difficulties faced by our community. And that's the reason why our community members rely heavily on agents, accountants and other consultants to assist them with these. Our chamber doesn't have a designated interpreter on daily base except of emergencies like police and hospital, often I am the one provides these services (for free).
I have often pleaded with my community to be more integrated into locals, language is unfortunately the biggest barrier. Hopefully the second generation will do better. However, our community have been contributing to local charities and social responsibilities in the past decades. You can google and check Newcastle if you want to find out more.
There are 20~30 new factories opened in the past 4 years in Newcastle, some of them are unknown to us as well.
In Newcastle Chinese community,there are people from Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and Singapore. It is a task to put everybody on the same page.
I am open to suggestions and willing to accept opinions, but people also need to understand the Chinese community before jump to the conclusion.
Your comments were appreciated.
Alex
Alex - the language debate can go on for quite sometime - I still find your reasoning very hard to believe let alone accept. Be that as it may - we can debate that another time.
The Chinese community as you have mentioned seems quite broad which then also shows the mistrust between the Mainland Chines & the Taiwanese who have a long & bitter struggle between them as history can attest to.
You need to bring these feuding ideologies together for the common good otherwise no matter what you say you are going to do nothing will be achieved with the mistrust that the members within the community have with each other.
The Chinese have a poor reputation as it is, your image needs to be seriously improved.
the support for anything Chinese is met with extreme suspicion - expect perhaps a restaurant. your community surely cannot afford that at any time, especially now. don't play victim all the time it gets tiring and people will lose interest. promote companies that can be used as examples for others to follow & make examples of those that flagrantly go against the accepted norms of society at large.
You have quite rightly drawn attention of the dire situation of the clothing industry in the public domain - you have also shown up what the community is not doing & then having to defend their transgressions. enough is enough. the community must join together - your 2 associations must work together actively unless you want to seriously risk divide and conquer tactics.
Understand the South African way & the South Africans will warm to you & start learning your ways & customs & understand you better.
Our country has many different races & creeds - some of which are ideologically & politically opposed to each other over many issues but they still work with each other for the betterment of there community & country as a whole.
Remember whether they are your members or not they are here in South Africa - not back home in their respective countries - understand our ways & we can start to understand yours.
You have a seriously tarnished image which you need to take stock of & clean up extremely quickly. don't wait for the next generation to clean up the mess of this one. FIX IT NOW
Thanks for the suggestions. No, we are not going to pass negative debits to the next generation to repay. We will discuss the problem areas picked up in this raid and find solutions to fix them, within a time frame.
My approach towards this raid is, we accept what we have done wrong and we will fix it, but don't add on extra stories (which we haven't done) to tarnish our images. I am worried that the reports about the findings in the raid will be exaggerated.
You mentioned about a successful example of Chinese business in Newcastle, i can tell you that we have got a Taiwanese business, whose factory won the first prize of Productivity SA of KZN, he provides free medical aids and other benefits for all the employees. His business donated 160 sets of LED traffic lights imported from Taiwan(value more than R350,000) to Newcastle Municipality to replace all the old traffic lights in 2006 when most of other municipalities were just about to test LED.
Tzu-Chi Foundation and BLIA from Taiwan distributed 4,500 food parcels and 150 wheel chairs last year, our chamber also donated R99,000 towards Winter Warmth Campaign (East Coast Radio) in June this year.
Alex that is good to hear about businesses donating and helping out the community the the various religious organizations Tzu-Chi & Buddha Light.
More needs to be done regarding the clothing factories that have become targets not with the social & religious organisations that so sterling work within & outside of the communities where they are based.
DoL , HA, et al are not really interested in the social aspect & they don't mention that in reports after raids regarding donations made or social upliftment being carried out.
The reputation of all Chinese is stake, they are becoming even more marginalised by the findings that have been printed in the media.
Correct me if i am wrong but the factory that donated these lights & provides free medical aid is not a clothing factory.
What I am trying to say on the surface the charity work is very commendable , once the surface is scratched is when the all is revealed not to be as we think it is.
This other association also needs to pull its weight, your work to clean up your image needs to be inclusive.
What I have also picked up on in your reply, which i alluded to in my previous response is the Taiwan - China differentiation.
everything you mentioned was Taiwan based - once you get over the separation of the nationalities then can the image for the community can start to be rebuilt - make separations & you are going nowhere - all have been tarred with the same brush - all must stand & work together to clean themselves up.
Strict policies must be in place to steady the communities ship, the whole Chinese speaking community
Alex, The union has won this battle. See the headlines in newspaper "KZN Horror Factories." The union, public, government etc not interested in the good deeds you do or your community do. You are the public face on the industry. You have worked hard to get wide support-this will all fall away very fast if you do not do something decisive now. All the public see is Chinese-nescastle-clothing industry-expolitation-sweatshops. You need to take on the other group in Newcastle. You need to come out with a clear statement that covers the following and do this all the time you talk to madia or union and challange them to accept this.
1. that there are x factories in newcastle
2. your group only represents x number factories\
3. that x factories in your group were in violation of XYZ in recent raid -rest from other group
4. that your group re wages x number pay above or just below -give details-how much % above how much % below
5. that your group employ etc ...
6. that the group made deal with union but not keeping the deal ...they in violaiton
7. that you cannot talk about other factories
also it is sad to see no voice or very silent from other organisation ucta-they were very loud now nothing. If you do not deal with this correctly will affect your image and court case ....union will never agree or admit about the two groups -you have to bring it into the open-yes this means maybe a split in community but that is the price otherwise your image is now very tainted.
CT#2
to CT#2
Thank you very much for the suggestion. We had a meeting on Sunday with our members. In the meeting, we found out many things reported in the media were exaggerated.
We've contacted the DoL to set up a meeting between Disciplinary Committee, DoL, SACTWU and NBC to discuss the findings of raids and solutions.
What I can tell you now is there're 75 clothing factories in Newcastle and 30 are our members.
Non-member factories which were raided also came to the meeting and requested to join the chamber. We decided to take them in and bring them on board to improve the conditions of their factories.
We cannot get away from the facts that there're some problems in some of the Chinese owned clothing factories, whether it's our members or not SACTWU will blame it to us. Our first priority is to assist the factories to fix all the problem areas and prevent the same from happening again.
At this stage, responsibility is more important than the image of the chamber.
Alex
CT#2 - I agree with you on your points raised
Alex must not allow this to continue.
The target is firmly placed on the Chinese & this also does not make any Chinese in South Africa look good, it spilled over from Newcastle ages ago & has been allowed to get this far.
Alex one thing you must accept - as the face of the Chinese community in Newcastle you are accountable for their action and if you do act decisively you will as CT#2 has pointed out - fought for nothing - you can't blame anyone else for that.
What are you going to do with this other grouping is also important as it can & will drive a wedge into the work you are trying to do. Newcastle & Chinese across the board cannot afford this wedge. The union & nbc and other govt. depts will pounce like hungry vultures on any opportunity like this. You can't allow this to continue.
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