Decent Work Fundamentalism and Job Destruction in the South African Clothing Manufacturing Industry

Chapter 6 reviews the history of collective bargaining in the South African clothing manufacturing industry. We show that its profoundly dualist character (high- and low-productivity firms co-existing) has historical and market-related roots and highlight the role of wage policy during and after apartheid in shaping the regional location of firms. The rise of China as a global producer of clothing had a profound impact on the South African industry—but it was the simultaneous introduction of national collective bargaining and the enforcement of minimum wages on relatively low-wage labour-intensive firms that drove the job losses. We describe the 2010/11 ‘compliance drive’ that resulted in legal action against the National Bargaining Council for the Clothing Manufacturing Industry by low-wage employers, including the Chinese firms (that is, owned by people who originated from Taiwan, Hong Kong, or China) in Newcastle seeking to obtain relief from the imposition of sector-wide minimum wages on their labour-intensive firms. Whilst trade union strategy as well as government policy adapted to some extent and many employers transformed their enterprises into workers’ co-operatives, that is to circumvent wage regulation, the outcome was nonetheless the preclusion of employment growth in this crucial sector.