The SA Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union (Sactwu) has called on fashion houses and retailers to ensure that companies that supply them with goods comply with employment and labour laws.
This comes after Employment and Labour Minister Thulas Nxesi carried out a blitz inspection at a Newcastle textile and clothing company where four workers died and 18 were injured in a fire last June.
The inspection revealed that the company was still operating under the same “appalling” conditions.
Department spokesperson Teboho Thejane said it employed mainly undocumented Lesotho nationals and the factory working area was poorly ventilated.
He said workers were being paid less than the national minimum wage and were living in the factory.
“Workers are locked inside the factory ... (and) sleeping in a single, poorly ventilated room in the factory.”
Thejane said after the company failed to comply with some labour laws and regulations, it was issued with a prohibition notice barring employees from sleeping in the factory.
The company was also issued with a contravention notice for not providing employees with an eating area, not having first aiders, not having an electrical certificate of compliance, not having a health and safety representative, poor housekeeping, obstructing fire equipment and not providing employees with soap and tissue paper in the restrooms.
Etienne Vlok, the national industrial policy officer for Sactwu, said the minister himself had returned to the company to follow up.
Vlok noted that after the fire at the company last year, Sactwu wrote to the minister providing information about what had happened there and indicated the union’s concerns.
He said Sactwu believed there were three ways in which the situation and the company could be improved and fixed.
“The first is that Sactwu calls on the Department of Labour to institute regular compulsory monthly inspections of this company and, in doing so, they clearly and consistently track the situation at the company,” he said.
Secondly, Vlok said harsher measures should be imposed on companies which do not comply with the law to ensure that they correct their misbehaviour.
“The third one is important. It’s fine to only look at companies’ practices but if one starts to follow the money, the question is who benefits from these practices?” he said.
He explained that the fashion houses were the middle man. “They are the ones that often drive into Newcastle, go into the factories and deal with these factories and place the orders.”
Vlok said that ultimately the design houses and retailers benefit from these kinds of companies which behave in “a terrible manner”.
“Sactwu calls on these design houses and retailers to ensure that they insist that this company, but also similar companies that exhibit bad practices, correct their devious behaviour, and if this doesn’t happen they must withdraw their orders,” he said, adding that a large part of the responsibility fell on them.
He said other companies in the Newcastle area followed the same practices, grossly underpaid workers, treated them terribly and also used undocumented workers.
He called for the same measures to be applied to all these non-compliant companies.
The Mercury