China is not exactly the flavour of the month at the Congress of South Africa Trade Unions’ (Cosatu) national congress, but ironically its textile-exporting muscle is amply demonstrated in the entrance hall of the Gallagher Estate venue.
The four-day congress ends on Thursday, and various businesses — including the South African Post Office (SAPO), African Rainbow Minerals (ARM), chaired by Patrice Motsepe, and Sanlam — have informal stands in the entrance hall advertising their services.
But various informal traders have clothing items — including T-shirts, hats, caps and jackets — on sale carrying the branding of the ruling African National Congress, Cosatu and the South African Communist Party (SACP), which form part of the tripartite alliance.
A shirt carrying an image of the late SACP leader Chris Hani states on the back — “socialism is about basic services for all”. The label carries a little message stating that it is “Made in China.” It costs R50.
Likewise, an SACP peak cap carries the message “one for all” with small writing at the bottom of a label also indicating that it was made in China. The cap costs R65.
On Tuesday, Cosatu affiliate in the sector, the South African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union, held a demonstration during the congress using 40 000 pieces of garments, saying that over the past two years 40 000 jobs were shed in the sector owing to the cheap imports from China.
Cosatu president Willie Madisha commented on that day that every worker fed 10 people, which translated those job losses into 400 000 people affected.
Approached to comment on the array of imported Chinese goods, Cosatu spokesperson Patrick Craven provided a written response: “Cosatu is a founder and sponsor of the Proudly South Africa (PSA) campaign and the congress this week has reaffirmed its demand for more South African manufactured goods to be put on the shelves of the retailers.
“Congress supported the limits on Chinese clothing imports agreed between the South African and Chinese government and urges all stakeholders to comply with this decision.”
He declined to comment on the irony of the flood of Chinese imported goods on sale — which were being sold by Cosatu members as well as independent traders.
However, on Monday Madisha said that jobs were being destroyed “on a daily basis in the textile industry” in South Africa “due to the massive and uncontrolled import of cheap Chinese textiles”.
“We have made it clear before that these imports are at the heart of the job losses in the textile industry,” he said.
“We must, however, congratulate the government for engaging the Chinese government on the issue of cheap Chinese goods and dealing with the issue of quotas, but at the same time we must also condemn government for not involving us in the negotiations on this issue.”
In his presidential address, Madisha also said: “We have just been told that cheap Chinese cars will soon flood our market and country.”
“The importation of these cheap Chinese cars is bound to worsen an already worse [bad] situation in terms of creating more job losses,” he said. — I-Net Bridge