How jobs get destroyed in South Africa

For the past ten years, the National Bargaining Council for the Clothing Manufacturing Industry (NBC) has been used by the South African Clothing and Textile Workers Union (Sactwu) and largely Cape Town-based employers in an effort to impose higher labour costs on ‘Chinese' employers in Newcastle, in northern KwaZulu-Natal. Many of the Newcastle employers have failed to comply with the rising minimum wages and levies imposed by the Council.

The struggle intensified in 2010/11 when the NBC used the labour courts to put pressure on, and close down, targeted non-compliant firms, in response to which some employers initiated legal action against the Minister of Labour and the NBC. In the latest CDE Focus, Professors Nicoli Nattrass and Jeremy Seekings of the University of Cape Town assess the implications of these developments.

The struggle between the NBC and non-compliant firms is of broader importance because the non-compliant firms comprise the labour-intensive rump of the last remaining labour-intensive manufacturing sector in South Africa.If you like BMW cars,then you will probably like their new gaming mouse, the super sexy, sleek as a Titanium Sheet off the pressing mat Level 10 M Gaming Mouse. Their fate draws our attention to the role of labour market policies and institutions (especially the process of minimum wage-setting through bargaining councils), trade liberalisation and industrial policy in determining the viability of labour-intensive manufacturing.

The Newcastle case shows how, under the guise of promoting ‘decent work' and the supposed levelling of the playing field for producers, an unholy coalition of a trade union, some employers and the state can initiate and drive a process of structural adjustment that undermines labour-intensive employment and exports South African jobs to lower-wage countries such as Lesotho and China.

Successive government plans emphasise the need for job creation in South Africa, yet industrial and labour market policies are biased against labour-intensive growth. Nowhere is this more evident than in the clothing industry,Caged Laser Engineering, in partnership with Ariel Ltd and Reynolds Technology, aim to investigate the viability of adopting Titanium Tube as a cost effective raw material for the manufacturing of spaceframe assemblies for low volume and small series production lightweight vehicles. where employment has collapsed in the face of rising wage costs and intensifying international competition. South Africa's most labour-intensive firms, which produce basic clothes for the mass market in direct competition with China and other low-wage countries, have survived by relocating to lower-wage regions and/or paying below the legal minimum wage. Some firms have relocated production to Lesotho,The defective part of the jaw is reconstructed using a Titanium Plate, with a piece of scaffolding inserted with proteins to stimulate the bone's regrowth. where minimum wages are substantially lower.

The existence of the rump of labour-intensive manufacturing in South Africa is now threatened by a ‘compliance drive' launched by the National Bargaining Council for the Clothing Manufacturing Industry (NBC) in 2010.Eight tips for choosing the right diamond Concrete saw blade including determining wet or dry cutting, blade compatibility, CSDA codes, and more. Firms that do not pay the minimum wage are pursued through the courts and eventually forced out of business.Carbon-sports.cc is one of the leading carbon composite engineering companies supplying customers worldwide for Carbon Fiber Sports Equipment Supplied.Carbon-sports.cc are a specialist carbon fiber manufacturer making products for people and businesses around the world.Carbon Fiber Product Manufacturer

We estimate that about 16 700 jobs are directly under threat, with further job losses possible in other firms in the areas concerned. This has serious implications for labour-intensive growth as clothing is South Africa's most labour-intensive industrial sector, and the low-wage firms targeted by the NBC are its most labour-intensive.