The Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union (Sactwu), in their attempt to rejuvenate the sick domestic clothing and textile industry, has succeeded in convincing the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) to press for sourcing domestically made T-shirts during the local body elections coming up next year.
According to the industry sources, this pact between the IEC and Sactwu is a major move heading towards the country sourcing domestically manufactured clothing and textiles.
Cosatu General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, while applauding Sactwu's efforts during its 11th National Congress a few days back said that, the drive towards more use of domestic items, is gaining importance in times of high un-employability in the country.
The official emphasized that, the firms willing to bid for supplying T-shirts that the electoral representative's of IEC would be wearing during forthcoming local body elections, need to produce them domestically. Doing this would not only bring down the redundancy ratio, but may even generate new job opportunities within the sector, he added.
IEC for its forthcoming election would almost require 200,000 T-shirts, which would greatly help absorb the idle capacity in the sector. It would hardly take a few weeks time for a couple of mid-sized clothing factories to prepare these T-shirts, Baard said.
Employment statistics released by the National Bargaining Council depict that, the employment opportunities in domestic clothing sector declined by 43 percent or say 24,000 jobs, during the period from 2004 to April 2010. Also in the earlier part of the current year, Seardel laid-off around 2,000 workers.
Fibre2fashion News Desk - India
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