An alliance clothing task team set up to deal with the job loss crisis in the sector over the last two years has come up with draft proposals to deal with the sector.
Headed by Sactwu general secretary, Ebrahim Patel and minister of public enterprises, Alec Erwin , the team has proposed a range of measures to improve competitiveness.
These focus on industrial policy, procurement and human resource issues.
According to the alliance document, industrial policy proposals include ideas to:
improve the quality of locally manufactured goods
promote innovative products and design
upgrade technology
reduce raw material costs
use local supplies more effectively
improve efficiencies through advanced information and communication technologies
better infrastructure
increase investment.
Other ideas which will interest workers in Numsa’s sectors suggest:
pushing government and retailers to buy local
instituting safeguard measures on imports (tariffs are increased on imports to protect local manufacturers)
cracking down on illegal imports.
Human resource proposals suggest increasing training for workers and managers.
This draft proposal will now feed in to government’s own process of drawing up proposals.
Meanwhile the engineering job summit process is still on the agenda. Government has finally agreed to pay for the summit which has removed one stumbling block. No date has yet been set.