Business Cape will apply the lessons learned in dealing with the job crisis in the local clothing and textile sector to next month’s Western Cape Growth and Development Summit.
In the face of ongoing job losses of about 1 000 a month, the Western Cape business umbrella organisation in August started a series of negotiations with labour and clothing and textile factory owners.
The chairperson of Business Cape, Adrian Sayers, said a key issue was to help “factories in distress” before they went out of business.
A six-a-side committee, including provincial government officials, representatives of trade unions and industry owners, had been established to try to prevent, and eventually reverse, job losses, Sayers added.
The provincial summit — a sequel to the June national Growth and Development Summit — was announced this week by provincial minister of economic affairs Ebrahim Rasool.
He said the summit would produce a provincial framework agreement with specific actions and targets to live up to the province’s motto “iKapa Elihlumayo” (Growing and sharing the Cape).
“The summit is only an event in a much larger process,” said Rasool. “The social partners agreed that a post-summit process that signposts the pathway for the construction of a provincial growth and development strategy should be agreed to.”
Agreement on the summit from civil society, labour, business and organised agriculture was secured earlier this week. As neither AgriWeskaap nor the provincial structures of the National African Farmers’ Union are part of Business Cape, their participation will prove crucial. Agriculture, alongside tourism, ranks among the top income earners and employers in the province.