Clothing workers reach wage deal with employers

3 Sep 2013

More than 50,000 clothing and textile workers will not go on strike as five out of six employer organisations and the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union (Sactwu) have reached a last-minute deal to prevent strike action.

Clothing workers reach wage deal with employers

Sactwu general secretary Andre Kriel said on Monday (2 September) that this agreement would bring stability to the sector for the foreseeable future and the employer organisations had acceded to all of the union's demands.

During the past month Sactwu has been balloting its members on whether or not to strike should the negotiations fail.

More than 86% of 40‚000 workers balloted, voted in favour of the strike.

Sactwu is one of the few Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) affiliated labour organisations that conducts a ballot to gauge members' views on strike action.

Kriel said should the negotiations have not worked out then the union would have told the employers that they were getting a 48-hour strike notice.

"Settlement of this negotiation is primarily to bring stability to the sector so that we can focus on other issues concerning the industry‚" he said.

In terms of the settlement‚ urban area clothing workers will receive a 7% total labour increase‚ rural area clothing workers will receive a 10.1% wage increase and all wage increases will be backdated to 1 September. Those clothing employees who have unilaterally implemented wage increases and those third-party employer associations who have not signed the agreement will be required to implement a further wage increase.

Kriel said that the further wage increase was to discourage unilateralism‚ which in the union's view is detrimental to orderly collective bargaining.

Source: I-Net Bridge

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