Competition brings job losses

The South African textile, clothing and leather industry has shed more than 20,000 jobs over 18 months to June this year due to cheaper imports and the illegal importation of second-hand goods, trade unionists told IRIN on Monday.

S'bu Ndawonde of the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union (SACTWU) told IRIN that the flooding of the local market by cheaper imports is made possible by the ease with which illegal and second-hand goods are imported into the country.

"Retailers buy the goods from countries who use cheap labour, such as children, and can therefore afford to sell these cheaply in the country, thereby undercutting local manufacturers," said Ndawonde, who added that this has directly contributed to job losses.

Ndawonde said the 127,000-strong member union has embarked on protest action which might culminate in strike action to highlight the threat to job losses. "The possibility of a reduction in tariffs on textiles as proposed in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) free trade protocol poses a further threat to jobs in the industry," Ndawonde said.

Ndawonde added that some churches and non-profit organisations avail their import exemption certificates to retailers who import second-hand clothing that ends up on the streets and pose an unfair competition with manufacturers.

South Africa, in partnership with Lesotho, Botswana, Swaziland and Namibia, grouped under the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) has offered other SADC members an upfront reduction of tariffs of 40 percent for the clothing and textile sector, with the remainder to be phased down to zero over three to seven years.