Jazz Festival to locally source textile related products

08 Feb '14

2 min read

The COSATU-affiliated Southern African Clothing & Textile Workers’ Union (SACTWU) has concluded a ground-breaking local procurement agreement with the espAfrika, producers of the now world famous annual Cape Town International Jazz Festival (CTIJF).

For the first time in the 15 year history of the CTIJF, all the events’ clothing, textile and leather memorabilia will be completely sourced from local South African manufacturing operations.

“The parties recognise that the clothing, textile, footwear and leather (CTFL) industry is the source of employment for thousands of workers and the source of income for great numbers of families, communities and the unemployed”, notes the preamble to agreement signed late last week.

The agreement applies to the purchasing of all CTFL products by espAfrika in relation to the CTIJF and all its events, marketing and promotion.

“espAfrika undertake that all the CTFL products they or their agents or suppliers procure will be manufactured in the Republic of South Africa”, states the commitment part of the agreement.

EspAfrika has further undertaken that all these products will carry a country of origin label. This is an important verification tool, to prevent fake imported products from substituting valuable originals.

SACTWU has undertaken to work together with espAfrika to implement this agreement successfully. It is a significant further step in the union’s “Save Jobs Campaign”. This is an act of great commercial patriotism and social responsibility for the creation of decent domestic work, by espAfrika.

Annual attendance at the CTIJF is 37000 people over two days, from all parts of South Africa, Africa and internationally. This year’s CTIJF will take place on 28-29 March 2014 at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.

We further expect this initiative to provide global exposure to for the quality of South African manufactured CTFL products.

It is the first step in an program to explicitly fuse jazz and fashion in the CTIJF.

SACTWU

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