12 City Press || 12 September 2010

News 30000 The minimum number of textile workers who lost

their jobs between 1998 and 2008 because of
factory closures and cutbacks

Job losses blamed on cheap imports, policy disparity

YUGENDREE NAIDOO
news@citypress.co.za
The last three years have been “a hell
of a drama” for Fanie Cupido.
He lost his job of 23 years at nylon
and polyester factory Sans Fibre in
2007 because of cutbacks. He never
imagined that at the age of 49 he
would have to compete with
youngsters in a shrinking job market.
Three years down the road he is
still unemployed, thinking carefully
before spending a single cent
garnered from the small sewing jobs
his wife does at their home in Bishop
Lavis, on the Cape Flats.
Cupido is just one of more than
30 000 textile workers who lost their
jobs between 1998 and 2008 because
of factory closures and cutbacks.
Although the clothing and textile
industry in the Western Cape is the
third largest contributor to the sector
– after Gauteng and KwaZulu­Natal –
contributing a gross of R2.3 billion in
clothing, textiles and leather goods in
2008, the economic data covers a tale
of lost jobs and families thrust into
poverty.
The gross value of clothing, textiles
and leather goods increased from
R1.685 billion in 1998 to R2.3 billion in
2008, according to the Western Cape
economic development and tourism
department.
But labour force statistics show a
different trend. Over the same period
employment in the sector decreased
by about 40%, from 77 216 to 45 839
employees.
The Cape Clothing Association
attributes these job losses to a flood
of cheap Asian imports, and to trade
and policy imbalances between China
and South Africa.
“It’s been an uphill battle,” says
Clifton Rugters, a former shop
steward at the Sans Fibre factory. It
closed in April last year, a direct
result of cheap imports from the Far
East, he says, coupled with a
struggling local economy.
But the manufacture of “locally
produced Chinese goods” in factories
paying below minimum wage is never
a factor in job losses in the Western
Cape, according to Leon Deetlefs, the
national compliance officer at the
industry’s bargaining council. Like
Rugters, he puts the blame at the
door of cheap imports. He says
compliance does not mean shutting
factory doors.
“About 99% of clothing factories in
Western Cape pay the minimum
wage,” he says, making it the most
compliant province in the country.
However, Deetlefs says some
factories are found to be non­
compliant when it comes to paying
levies such as healthcare, provident
fund and union subscription fees, with
17 factories out of the Cape Chamber
having outstanding levies worth more
than R10 million.
Gregory Hoedemaker, who was a
senior shop steward at the Rex
Trueform factory before it closed in
2005, says most of the employees
were single mothers.
“Up until today some of them are
unemployed and still sitting at home.”
Some of the retrenched factory
workers were able to find jobs at
other factories or set up small sewing
businesses or were contracted as
seamstresses, he says. This means
they are often exploited at below
minimum wage, or not paid at all if
orders are rejected.
“But they prefer that to being
unemployed because they at least
have something compared to nothing,”
he explains.
Former Sans Fibre operator
Desmond Bell (60) agrees that getting
something rather than nothing is far
better.
Bell now has to support his wife
and two children on his pension and
provident fund following his
retrenchment in 2008 after 32 years
in the industry.
“We were warned by the CEO from
the early 2000s that the place would
be as quiet as a mouse because fewer
orders were coming in,” he says.
“The company was forced to charge
more for the thread as the workers
demanded more wages.
“It would have been better if we
earned less, but at least still had a job
because now nylon is being imported.
It’s tough out there. I’m looking for
something else, but there’s no hope of
finding work in the textile industry.” –
West Cape News

Workers
prepared
to work for
peanuts
Employers say the choice is between
low wages and closing factories
ANNA­MARIA LOMBARD
news@citypress.co.za
Cindy Mkhaliphi is faced with a dilemma
shared by almost 8 000 other textile
factory workers in Newcastle, KwaZulu­
Natal: earn peanuts or earn nothing.
Her job is on the line as Newcastle’s
economy teeters on a knife edge. Bosses
of 65 textile companies – known as “cut,
make and trim” factories – prepare for a
final showdown with authorities enforc­
ing minimum wage laws which they warn
will close factory doors and cause nearly
one­third of the city’s 24 000 manufac­
turing jobs to be lost.
Late one afternoon this week, as the
factory whistle blew and 150 workers at
one of the factories in Newcastle’s indus­
trial area Riverside queued up to punch
their job cards, the tension was palpable.
For days the talk had solely been about
the clothing manufacturing national bar­
gaining council’s insistence that clothing
factories all pay the basic minimum wage
of R324 a week.
Shuffling behind a curtain to be
searched for possible pilferage, Mkha­
liphi, a 26­year­old ironer on the produc­
tion line, says she knew the bargaining
council was supposed to care about them
as workers, but she would rather work for
her meagre R250 a week.
“It took me two years to find this job,”
says Mkhaliphi, who spends a quarter of
her salary every month on the 20km bus
trip to and from home at Masondeza
Farm.
“People stream here, thinking there are
so many factories, so there must be work,
but just look at these shacks.” She points
to a sprawling informal settlement that
has mushroomed in the last year.
National compliance manager Leon
Deetlefs says the first factories being
forced to comply are the worst offenders
that pay less than R200 a week.
But this crackdown is only the start.
“Not one factory in Newcastle is
compliant,” Deetlefs says.
Newcastle and neighbouring Madade­
ni merged after local elections in 1996
and locals hoped the merging of the econ­
omies would see investment flow in.
To fill empty homes and industrial
space, the director of economic develop­
ment at the Newcastle municipality, Fer­
die Alberts, accelerated his campaign,
marketing Newcastle to Taiwan and
mainland China.
Alex Liu arrived in 1994 as a 25­year­
old to expand the family business started
here in the 1980s. Liu made South Africa
his home, stood for election, became a
local councillor and runs a factory
employing 150 workers.
But doing business, he says, has been
tough. “Electricity, rates, rent and wages
have all gone up.
“My workers are like my family,” he
says. “We spend our days together. The
bargaining council hasn’t come to talk to
them. Not one of our Newcastle factories
is represented on the council.”
Alberts says it is becoming even harder
to draw investment to Newcastle.
“A chemical company invested
R1.5 billion and created just 150 jobs. In
clothing you can create the same number
of jobs with R1.5 million. They are lower­
paying jobs, but in an area with 60%
unemployment we are under pressure to
do whatever we can.”
But Deetlefs says compliance is not
negotiable. Cases are under way to get
wages for 2008 and last year rectified.
Liu and Alberts argue that there should
be negotiation about what is realistic in
Newcastle. Investors shouldn’t be
pushed so that they pull out.
In Yellow Road, Madadeni, about 10km
outside Newcastle, young women speak
Textile workers at factories in Newcastle would like a better wage, but cannot entertain the prospect of becoming destitute again || PHOTOS: LUCKY NXUMALO
about their work in the nearby factories.
They all say they earn R150 a week for
ironing; others earn between R200 to
R265 for sewing; R140 for packing; and
R120 as a line assistant.
Nonhlanhla Mlambo, who has worked
as a seamstress for 15 years and now
earns R150 a week says she knows most
of the Chinese owners, and that there is
little that would stop them from leaving
if their backs were against the wall. Then
she and her husband – a machinist at an­
other factory – would be destitute again.
There are investors who have been
aggressively courted by Mozambique,
Swaziland and Lesotho to invest there.
Says Liu: “One factory owner set up
shop in Swaziland and worked out that
his factory there cost him 54c a second
to run. Here, it cost him R1.04 a second.
“We have to find a long­term solution
to this problem – it keeps coming up.”
Liu’s right­hand woman, Sibongile
Miyeni (28), has worked for Liu 10 years
and is now part of management.
She says they would all like to earn
more, but they know what prices clients
are willing to pay.
“If they bring a shirt, we as the workers
examine the construction to see what has
to be done. We will say, ‘oh, we can make
this for R25’. Then we see what the suppli­
er is willing to pay – R9 ... R10. We must
take the work. If we retrench workers to
pay others more, then we won’t be able
to deliver on time.”
On Wednesday Newcastle factory
bosses will submit their proposal to the
bargaining council.
R324 Threadbare investment
THE BASIC MINIMUM WAGE PER
WEEK THAT THE BARGAINING Marketing Newcastle as the
COUNCIL INSISTS CLOTHING industrial heartland of South Africa
FACTORIES PAY to Chinese investors has become
more challenging as news of the
uphill battle faced by clothing
factory owners spreads abroad.
The clothing industry national
R250 bargaining council is trying to
recoup wages owed to workers. The
council says certain factories owe
THE AMOUNT A 26­YEAR­OLD workers anything form R655 000 to
IRONER IN A FACTORY IS R1.2 million for the past year alone.
PREPARED TO BE PAID BECAUSE “The reality is that clothing
SHE SAYS IT TOOK HER TWO manufacturing demands cheap
YEARS TO GET A JOB labour. The government has said
clothing and textile manufacturing
is a critically important industry.
Either this is true, and investors
must be supported, or it is no
longer true,” says Newcastle’s
economic development director
Ferdie Alberts.
Chinese­owned factories have
been discussing the wage issue
with the bargaining council for
more than a year.
The last decade has seen a
number of factories unable to
A sample of a payslip used by one of the sustain business. The lack of
Chinese factories. The investors have threatened incentives previously provided by
to close the factory because the bargaining the apartheid government hasn’t
council wants them to pay better salaries to the made it easier to deal with labour
workers. Salaries range from R120 to R265 a inefficiencies and escalating
week || PHOTO: LUCKY NXUMALO
production costs.
V In 2000 Richfin of Taiwan took
advantage of the African Growth
and Opportunity Act, which
opened up the US for a period of
eight years – it allowed sub­
Saharan African countries to export
duty free.
V Despite the incentive, and a loan
from the Industrial Development
Corporation, the factory only
worked while the rand­dollar
exchange rate remained favourable.
In 2002 Richfin went under and
2 000 people lost their jobs almost
overnight.
V In 2004 Nova Textiles closed
down after two rounds of
retrenchments had left hundreds of
workers jobless. The remaining
1 900 workers also lost their jobs.
V In 2006 Nantex Industry closed
and 3 000 lost their jobs. At the
height of the boom in Newcastle it
employed 13 000 people. Today
about 8 000 remain.
V At the start of the decade, more
than 2 000 Taiwanese lived in the
town, and today there are fewer
than 700.
V About 1 500 traders and factory
workers from mainland China still
live in Newcastle.

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