Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel’s mother worked at Cape Town garment maker Rex Trueform for 18 years; trade unionist turned MP Connie September clocked in at the factory; and before 65-year-old community radio veteran Zane Ibrahim was born, his mother also worked there.
”If you grew up in Cape Town, you grew up with Rex Trueform,” says Ibrahim, Bush Radio’s MD.
Many workers, like Rouwayda Baker (40), come from families where several generations have worked together at the factory — Baker, her mother and aunt, two sisters, a brother and her son have put in more than 86 years’ service.
Last year Baker’s sister was retrenched. Today her position as quality controller is among the 1 000 jobs threatened by the looming closure of Cape Town’s — and South Africa’s —oldest clothing manufacturer.
”People are very sad … We are like a family at Rex Trueform. You want to go to work because you miss your friends and colleagues,” she said. ”It’s hard to see a husband and wife working there that will both lose their jobs.”
Philma Manuel, Trevor’s mother, started working at the factory in 1940. ”It was wonderful to work there in those days; we were a family. There was a time when Rex Trueform burnt [down]; for six weeks we were paid.
”When I started wages were R1,50 an hour. We survived on that … Our motto was ‘take pride in your work’.”
After 67 years Rex Trueform aims to close the factory. It will retain its money-spinning Queenspark retail outlets across South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Australia. At these, unionists say, 80% of garments are cheap Chinese imports.
CEO Catherine Radowsky said the factory had lost R60-million over six years because of the strong rand and ”a surge of imported garments from countries with low cost inputs”.
About 17 000 workers have lost their jobs across South Africa over the past year. A third of the 90 000-strong clothing workforce is in Cape Town.
Baker, stands to lose her first and only job since leaving school at 16. ”If Rex closes, what about the other factories? They’re on short-time … there isn’t enough work.”
Sitting in the tiny lounge of her Delft home on the Cape Flats, 35km from her workplace, she wonders how she will support her son and grandchild and repay her home loan.
”I’m a single parent, and my health is not so good — but I’m on the clothing sick fund … If I’m unemployed then I must get up at one in the morning to be at the day hospital at three.”
Friend and fellow shop steward Gabieba Hendricks (45) worries about medical bills for her 10-year-old son, badly hurt in an explosion. Three of her seven children are at school.
Hendricks has been at Rex Trueform since leaving school at 15 in 1976; her daughter also works there. ”When we’re at the factory we’re at home. It’s my family,” she says.
The South African Clothing and Textile Workers Union (Sactwu) still hopes to save the factory. Last year the union, the Western Cape government and investors worked to save a third of the 1 300 threatened jobs at Novell and Tej.
At Tej it’s still touch and go: a contract with a national retailer has thrown the firm a lifeline. A member of the ”rescue team” says the next six months will be crucial. Similar rescue plans have been touted for Rex Trueform.
”Rex Trueform is one of the industry’s icons. Confidence will plunge if it closes,” said Sactwu national organising secretary Wayne van der Rheede.
The clothing industry did not have to be a sunset sector if there was investment and commitment to buying local materials, said Van der Rheede.
But it’s not just about jobs. For generations Capetonians have turned to the tailored suits of Rex Trueform for weddings, matric dances and first job interviews. Maids and madams patiently queue around the block to pick up a garment at its regular sales.
Among local hawkers and in take-away stores, the closure dominates conversation. It will be another blow for the struggling inner-city suburbs of Salt River and Woodstock.
”It will give me and other small businesses a knock,” says Ebrahim Ishmail, who has stood behind the counter at a local cafÃ