“First it was the enormous salary cut, now I am just waiting for the day my boss tells me to pack my bags and go,” said Solomon Mahlangu, an employee at the KwaNdebele-based Transpaco plastic bag factory, speaking to the Mail & Guardian last week.
Mahlangu is just one of many workers whose employment is under threat because of the new law on plastic bags, introduced in May this year.
Under the original September 2002 agreement between business and government, a Section 21 company was to be set up to promote recycling and job creation, but it is still in the process of formation.
Transpaco was founded in 1998 with the assistance of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) as part of a programme to help businesses get off the ground. Now it is facing closure as the demand for plastic bags declines ever further.
“It is only a matter of time before we close,” said Transpaco managing director Cesseri Taylor. “We can’t afford to run the company at a loss. Since this new legislation we are selling 80% less than what we used to. Our turnover has dropped by more than 50%. If the situation carries on at this rate, people are going to find themselves without jobs.”
Taylor said that before the introduction of the new law the company was, in fact, in the process of employing more people. At present it employs 55 workers from the poverty-stricken township of KwaNdebele.
“We bought new machines earlier this year. We would have employed more people. But now we are looking at possible retrenchment.”
Already hundreds of workers within the industry have been retrenched. Last month the M&G reported that 50 more workers at JR Plastics lost their jobs. According to the Plastics Federation of South Africa, more than 250 jobs within the industry have been lost out of an estimated 3 800.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions estimates the total number of employees in the plastic-bag industry as somewhat higher, and predicts that up to 4 000 jobs could be lost if the situation does not improve.
“Life has become so difficult ever since [Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism] Mohammed Valli Moosa introduced this new legislation,” said Mahlangu.
His salary has already dropped from R1 300 to R230 a week. “What do you do with R230? I can’t even buy myself a bus ticket. I can’t afford to pay my instalments. It is very difficult. Now my son has been expelled from university because I couldn’t afford to pay his fees,” he said.
Steyn Shivambo, a refugee from Mozambique who also works at Transpaco, said he is no longer able to send money home. “With the little money I get, I can’t even maintain my own life. I have to buy electricity, pay rent, school fees [R800 a month] for three of my children, and R600 a month for their transport.”
Eunice Msibi said she used to work seven days a week but now she only works three. This has forced her to look for accommodation with friends who live near the factory, because she can no longer afford to pay for transport. “I am just working here now so that my family can get something to eat,” she said. “But I can’t stay with them any more.” She could not afford a school uniform for her child this year.
At another factory, Crystal Plastics, more than 20 workers were retrenched earlier this month. The retrenchments were confirmed by the factory’s CEO Vasco Martins this week.
The DTI referred the M&G’s queries to the department of environmental affairs, whose spokesperson, Phindile Makwakwa, said the department has proposed a reduction in the price of plastic bags. Makwakwa said the rationale behind the proposal was to lift sales of bags to a level that would make their manufacture sustainable.
“With the current situation, one would expect the demand for plastic bags to have increased,” she said.
Retailers such as Pick ’n Pay and Shoprite have already reduced the price of plastic bags sold in their shops. But overall demand for them has dropped as consumers increasingly use the stronger reusable bags.
The department’s proposals have been rejected by the Plastics Federation of South Africa. It argued that the current regulations already adequately cover the issue of bag thickness and cost recovery.
“The market must be free to decide, as it is under the current agreement,” said Wilhelm Naude, the federation’s CEO. The new proposal, he said, could introduce a host of further unintended consequences.
Makwakwa said that the task team established to deal with the plastic bag issue would meet again next week to discuss solutions to the problem.
Lauraine Lotter, a member of the task team set up by Moosa to implement the agreements reached by labour, business and the department of environmental affairs, told the M&G, the team was still in the process of setting up the Section 21 company that, according to the September 2002 agreement, would promote job creation and recycling.
The agreement stated: “The parties estimate that between 1 900 and 3 800 jobs could be created through the proposals outlined in this agreement.”
But Lotter said the company “was never intended to be employment offset for job losses in the plastic bag industry.
“Jobs will be created, but they will only be casual, except for those who will be managing the company.”