Cosatu welcomes clothing and textile quota

By Tando Mfengwana
05 September 2006

The Congress of South African Trade Union has welcomed the Governments announcement to gazette quotas on the Clothing and Textile industry imports from China.

Cosatu shares these sentiments with its affiliate South African Clothing and Textile workers Union.

Cosatu national Spokesperson, Patrick craven said that 67 000 jobs were lost in the past four years mainly because of cheap imports from China, believed to be produced by workers earning poverty wages without trade union rights and with government subsidies.

It’s only right that the playing field should be levelled, so, that textile workers can compete fairly” Craven said. Cosatu rejects the argument from South African retailers that the quotas will result in increase in prices.

Craven said that retailers must bring their profit margin down in order to put the interest of the country over the massive profits they make because of Chinese imports.