THE South African Garment and Textile Workers Union (SACTWU) has expressed deep concern at the serious damage caused by the looting, violence and razing of shops and malls.
The Cosatu-affiliated union said it was deeply concerned about the serious damage the recent looting in KwaZulu-Natal and elsewhere had caused to workers and their families.
SACTWU general secretary Andre Kriel said they were concerned about the looting and burning of factories and other workplaces.
“For example, in Isithebe (in Mandeni, on the north coast of KZN), a brand new clothing factory (Kingspark Manufacturers) which was only established in September of last year was completely destroyed. Machines and raw materials have been looted, and nothing remains. In the process, 600 much-needed jobs supporting 3,000 family members in the poorest part of the country are now lost, in this case alone,” Kriel said.
He said that in recent times Kingspark management and workers have successfully participated in an innovative collaborative pilot project on workplace productivity – to test and demonstrate the international intervention of the best practices of the SCORE program of the International Labor Organization.
“All of their hard collaborative work to grow the company and its jobs has now been undone, and the multiplier benefits for the entire industry have been lost. Similar incidents of looting and serious damage to national industrial infrastructure are being caused in other areas, such as Mayville, Section 6 in Newcastle and elsewhere,” Kriel said.
He added that the consequence was that thousands more jobs could now be lost permanently.
“We respect the constitutional right of our citizens to demonstrate peacefully. We also agree that there is a crisis of unemployment, inequality and poverty that must be addressed. However, the current looting, arson and other forms of damage are just criminality and are counterproductive to solving our problems,” Kriel said.
He said that it should not be accepted that while together with the national government and employers they had worked extremely hard to save and create local industrial jobs, the future sustainability of their efforts was compromised by criminal activity as well as horrible and shameless.
Kriel also called on the police and other law enforcement agencies to “crack down” on such unacceptable violent behavior, adding that the perpetrators should be arrested and prosecuted with the force of law, without fear or favour.
“We call on all of our members, other workers and all South Africans in general to condemn and stay away from this criminal conduct. We express our compassion to the workers and their families, who are the innocent victims of this shame that has been inflicted on our industry and our country,” Kriel said.
- Inside Politics
