-it allows for an increase in NBC- and employee benefit fund levies, equal to the now gazetted percentage wage increases;

-it prohibits any “downward variation” in the terms and conditions of employment of current employees;

-it prohibits the outsourcing of work from any compliant company to any non-compliant company;

-it requires the parties to enter into local procurement accords with all provincial and local governments to require such spheres of government to only procure their clothing industry related products from compliant companies and not from non-compliant companies;

-it grants the trade union, SACTWU, “….the unfettered right to embark on industrial action against any company which fails to implement the terms of this agreement”.

The Minister has gazetted the extension in terms of Section 32(5) of the Labour Relations Act. The Minister has further given notice that the now extended agreement comes into effect on 22 April 2013 and has extended its legal duration until the end of August 2016.

This is a significant  development and a great victory for SACTWU members. The union’s National Executive Committee (NEC), which concluded its three-day meeting in Cape Town on Friday, welcomed it and warmly thanks the Minister of Labour for her decisive action to protect vulnerable clothing workers, with this slogan: “No retreat, no surrender!”.

It  further strengthens our previous claim that those employers who secured a recent judgment (in the Pietermaritzburg High Court) have won a temporary and “hollow” victory.

We recognise and applaud those non-party employers who have already voluntarily implemented the new minimum wage levels, without the compulsion of a Ministerial gazettal.  They constitute the vast majority of employers in the industry. We will continue to work constructively with them.

We now require all those employers, such as those in non-metro areas like Newcastle, Isithebe, Botshabelo, Mogwase,  Ladysmith etc , as well as those employers who ran to Court instead of joining the wage negotiations process, to immediately comply with the law by implementing the now extended agreement.

 We caution that their failure to do so will leave us with no option other than to:

-ensure that the bargaining council intensifies its compliance enforcement processes;

-invoke our now gazetted and extended “unfettered right” to strike against such non-compliance.

Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union