I strongly suggest that Andre Kriel and the South African Clothing and Textile Workers Union (Sactwu) stop being defensive and misleading the readers of your paper (“Clothing council is doing its job”, July 15).
The series of articles published in the Mail & Guardian over recent weeks attempts to alert the public about the status of the National Bargaining Council (NBC) in the clothing industry, and the hardships faced by small to medium-sized enterprises to comply with rigid terms of employment conditions imposed upon them unilaterally by a non-representative bargaining council. Is this democracy?
The Cut, Make and Trim Employers’ Organisation (CMTEO) has been quoted in some of the articles, and readers must be mindful that at present the membership of CMTEO is concentrated in the KwaZulu-Natal region. If Kriel selectively uses wage rates paid in Botshabelo, Newcastle, Ladysmith and elsewhere where non-metro agreements have been concluded, and prescribed wage rates are as low as R100, R150 or R220 a week, then he, together with the parties to the NBC, are guilty of exploiting the workers in these areas.
The price of a loaf of bread is not materially different from area to area. Did the parties to the NBC give careful thought to what they have done? They have created a monster that is rapidly devouring the creator. Large manufacturers from metro regions are retrenching employees and/or closing their plants and relocating into non-metro areas where the labour cost is low and profitable. Is this how the NBC intends to sustain jobs in the clothing industry?
To aggravate matters, small, medium and micro-enterprises (SMMEs) in metro regions compete with the prices quoted by employers in non-metro areas. The non-metro employer is in a favoured position because the labour cost is unquestionably low.
In KwaZulu-Natal, the position is:
Representativity
- We have 160 members, employing about 8 900 employees, all SMMEs.
- The KwaZulu-Natal metro party association, the NCMA, has, we believe from press reports, 14 members employing about 4 500 employees.
- We are, therefore, both in terms of employers and employees, the larger organisation and more representative of the industry.
- We specifically represent SMMEs in the clothing industry.
- As far as NBC statistics quoted in the press are concerned, we believe that the union’s claimed membership needs to be investigated.
- We are led to believe that the party associations at the NBC do not employ more that 35% of the employees in the national clothing industry.
- Given the above, we have already announced that, should the minister see fit to extend the KwaZulu-Natal metro agreement to non-parties, we will go on advisement about whether we challenge this action in court.
Exemptions
- Notwithstanding many hours spent in preparation, all the applications submitted by our members to the NBC have been rejected by their Exemption Committee. It is a waste of time applying to the Independent Ombudsman as he/she has to use the same criteria and the outcome will be the same. The criteria are patently not fair and should be investigated by the Department of Labour.
- The criteria decided on by the NBC are not fair. It is impossible to get an exemption if you are a non-compliant clothing manufacturer. It is, likewise, in today’s market, impossible to become compliant. The negotiated rates may be okay for large manufacturers (even there we are doubtful), but certainly for SMMEs the prices they are offered do not enable them to pay more than R400 a week for a machinist. The bargained rate is R520, soon to be R540.
Compliance
- Virtually every one of our members does not comply with the agreement that ended on June 30 2005. This is not because we do not want to comply but, given the prices we are offered, because it is not possible. If it were possible, we would comply with the law. We do not condone citizens breaking the law.
- We are led to believe, through the press and other reports, that more than 70% of both employers and employees in the KwaZulu-Natal metro are non-compliant. There must be a message in this statistic. We are also led to believe that the number of non-compliant manufacturers increase on a daily basis. Surely any further extension of agreements to non-party employers will only increase the effect of non-compliance in KwaZulu-Natal. There has to be a reason why so many employers are non-compliant, and have no chance to comply.
- The NBC is forever calling our members to conciliation and arbitration meetings over their non-compliance. Most of them, who are registered with the council already, have arbitration awards and writs of execution issued against them. If the NBC were to execute the writs it has, they would close down more than 120 small companies in the KwaZulu-Natal metro. This cannot be in the interest of job creation and good governance. The constant threat of closure by the NBC, and possibly being goaled for contempt of court, is no way to run a business.
- In 2002/2003, the NBC in KwaZulu-Natal introduced a wage band that made virtually everybody compliant. Then, in 2004, it took away the wage band and we were supposed to pay our machinists the higher rate. This is simply not possible. They even tried to give us nine months via a provisional agreement to reach the higher rate. Even though we wanted to, it is not possible.
- The wage band needs to be reintroduced or a separate chamber for SMMEs created so that we can again become compliant.
Cyril Govender is the general secretary of the CMTEO